Vindication
by Melted Flames
Summary: Arya returns to Westeros mostly healed and with a new pack of her own, but the land she returns to may still be unsafe for Starks. Mostly Gendry and Arya's perspectives, but future chapters will contain POVs from Davos, Sansa, Jon, and Podrick.
1. Chapter 1 - King's Landing

_Chapter 1 - King's Landing_

**Gendry**

A foul breeze forced open a window, smashing it against the stone wall with an expensive-sounding crash.

Gendry Baratheon woke upright at the noise. He felt blindly in the dark room around clean sheets to find the small war hammer he always kept within reach. The hammer's steel cold in his grip, he slowly took in his surroundings: King's Landing. The wind - the very same wind he had welcomed to cool him from suffocating days forging in the Street of Steel for most of his life - stunk of shit, sweat, and death. Four years had passed since the fateful day a lonely queen lost her mind, momentarily sinking deep into her family's history of bloodlust and pyromania, burning nearly half the city's population of one million people. The air still occasionally carried their memories, remnants of ash and blood that flew with random gusts as if to take back their healing home city.

The sun had not yet bathed the sky in its warm light. He might still manage a few hours of sleep before their damned council meeting if his mind would stop playing its cursed games. Twice this night he had dreamt of someone he usually drove from his memory - of small, dangerous hands and soft breasts; a scarred abdomen under his lips; the moans and whimpers of a northern wolf in the night.

Simply remembering the dreams caused part of him to stiffen beneath his sleek sheets and he knew he would be able to sleep no further.

Cursing, Gendry kicked the sheets off of his body and swung his legs to the floor. He lowered his forehead to his hands for a moment before stepping across the cold stone to a reddish desk littered with scrolls and half-used quills. There was much that could serve as a proper distraction - letters to write and sums to balance, lordly duties that were only beginning to feel normal. He scraped a firesteel into its accompanying tinderbox to light a torch and began another day as the Lord of Storm's End.

The night transformed into day in the open window above him, and soon Gendry was interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

"Lord Baratheon," a voice sounded. He knew the tone too well - he had used it himself when he had to speak to lords that demanded answers from him in Tobho Mott's shop, avoiding their gaze and speaking indirectly to remain respectful. Now those who deserved a realm of their own just as much as he did used it when serving _him_. It twisted in his gut as a deep-felt guilt.

"Enter." His voice croaked from lack of use, still thick with sleep and lustful dreams he tried to forget.

A young serving girl slowly opened the door. She was likely just a few years younger than he, with long blonde waves pinned in a simple style upon her head and wearing a shapeless shift the shade of day-old tea. In her slight arms she carried fresh clothing, undoubtedly sent up by the King as a gift. The woman placed them upon the bed and stood uncomfortably with her hands clasped behind her back and her gaze firmly set upon the floor.

"I'll return with a meal to break your fast shortly," she whispered before scurrying out of the room.

Gendry wondered if she knew his story. _Of course not._ And why should she? His tale was hardly the rousing adventure other lords made it out to be when asking his favour - a bastard from Flea Bottom, someone this very servant would have brushed aside just a few years earlier. He had been in the right place at the right time, been the result of the right boarish royal oaf's drunken night with a tavern wench, and now he ruled one of the six kingdoms. To castle staff, the last note was all that mattered; he was a lord and a lord alone.

He pushed back his chair and rose to run a large hand across the soft clothes waiting for him. Well-woven fabrics still felt strange on his skin, slick and untrustworthy like the smooth scales of a serpent's belly. He much preferred the coarse texture of rough-spun linens or the shelter of thick leathers. These were the smooth silks of the nobility - he wanted no part of them. But, King Bran had sent them to him and even Gendry was not foolish enough to refuse a king.

The pile unfolded into a handsome tunic the colour of a thunder-filled sky and newly tailored leather trousers. For just a second, he wondered how a tailor had learned his measurements. It was a foolish thought; their ruler had known exactly which blade would kill the Night King, he did not need to ask for something as simple as measurements.

The serving girl returned with a wooden tray filled with a bowl of honeyed porridge, a plate of smoked fish, and a thinly-sliced apple. A warm cup of mulled wine accompanied it.

"Thank you," Gendry said to the girl. "What is your name?" He had long ago made sure to know the name of everyone who passed through Storm's End, surely could show her the same favour.

The girl's green eyes widened in uncertainty as her mouth twitched upwards into a knowing smirk. She thought he wanted her.

"Ellyne, m'lord," she responded with a raspy breath.

"Thank you, Ellyne." Gendry hadn't meant to do that. He was always forgetting the ways these things might be understood - a simple pleasantry spun into whatever it was other lords did with the serving staff. Now he'd need to take special care not to acknowledge Ellyne more than others, lest he awaken to her sliding into his bed to keep him warm in an effort to please.

The girl looked confused, then mildly disappointed before looking back to the floor and exiting swiftly.

One thing was certain - Gendry would never get used to this life.

...

The council meeting passed slowly. It always seemed to drag far longer than it needed to. Self-important lords managed to find ways to talk about themselves and boasted of their successes well into the hot afternoon. Finally, they voted on their final matters and sipped imported wine in a way Gendry could only consider bitterly ironic.

Mylon Tarth, a distant cousin who had taken Brienne's role as the heir to the Sapphire Isle now that she could no longer hold lands, was the first to leave. He raised his brows at Gendry in a silent observation that the meeting had been pointless, then swallowed the last of his wine and drove up a cloud of dust with each step out of the gravel. Gendry exhaled a tired chuckle at the sight.

He turned his gaze to Bran, who sat coolly in his wheeled chair. The new throne now, he supposed. A throne that traveled with its monarch was certainly the first of its kind.

The King met his eyes with a knowing look. Gendry had mostly gotten used to this at their annual meetings, but this time he could not help but wonder if their ruler could see the images that had filled his dreams the night before. He hoped not. Even a king as even-tempered as Bran the Broken would not sit idly by as the man before him replayed the ways he had made his sister gasp and tremble with pleasure in the night. Gendry tried to think of anything else - the blow of a hammer to hot steel, the angle at which he'd needed to strike to set dragonglass from its moulds in Winterfell, the freezing air filling his lungs as he ran back to Eastwatch by the Sea.

He sheepishly looked back at him to see that same strange look bearing into his core. It wasn't as bad as his first time hearing from the young king, but it was still uncomfortable.

_"My sister does love you,"_ Bran had told him upon the conclusion of their first council meeting just a week after he had been made regent, _"That was a large part of her motivation to leave."_ That only made Gendry feel worse, and he had kicked every loose stone in his path back to his temporary quarters after that meeting. Uncomfortable or not, the simple staring he encountered this time was at least better than that.

"Your grace," he started, "I'll be leaving as soon as I can, either tonight or in the early hours of the dawn. The Stormlands have much to resolve at this time." It always felt foolish telling Brandon Stark things, considering the fact he knew all.

King Bran nodded, "Thank you, Lord Baratheon. I wish you safe travels back to your home."

Gendry smiled lightly and stood to leave the dragon pit. He still had a few things to do before beginning his ride home. As he left, Bran dismissed the other lords and ladies, requesting his Hand speak with him privately.

Once he reached his room, Gendry threw his clothing and books into a pile and stuffed them into a sack. He ripped the new tunic from his body and relished in the feeling of the more rugged undershirt he pulled over his head to wear beneath a leather jerkin. The scrolls fit easily into the bag, and he was packed in a matter of minutes. How other lords needed an entire cart to haul their belongings for these meetings was beyond him.

A small but heavy bag closed off with twine sat at the bottom his packed satchel; Gendry pulled it from the contents and locked the door to his quarters behind him on the off chance that Ellyne or another serving girl might try to surprise him when he returned. He stopped by the kitchens on his way, requesting some ham, boiled cabbage, and fresh bread. The servants eyed him oddly as he stuffed the containers into the leather bag slung across his left shoulder.

The hallways of the rebuilt Red Keep wound until they reached an entryway still in construction. Gendry squeezed through the masons rebuilding the arch and let his feet carry him past the gates and along the burnt remains of the former city. His thoughts wandered as he walked towards Rhaenys' Hill. He found himself considering the spelling of words he could never quite get right; each step was another letter he had forgotten, a silent consonant or a vowel that pulled out the word in ways his tongue remembered but his mind did not.

His feet nearly took him past his destination: a small entry built into the side of a long-abandoned apothecary. Half-crumbled stairs turned sharply twice before he got to the door he wanted. He knocked in a rhythm that always came back to him when he returned to Flea Bottom: two knocks, three fast raps, a slap, and a definitive hit with the meaty end of his fist.

A woman cracked the door. "Melyra," Gendry greeted kindly, smiling as she opened the door wide enough for him to enter. Her hair was the shades of a fall harvest, tones of gold, wheat, and auburn swimming together into a long plait that hung down her wide back. The woman was heavy with child, he realized. She closed the door and shuffled into the poorly-lit room.

"Ryland," she called loudly, "We have a guest."

"When will it come?" Gendry asked as he nodded towards her large stomach.

Melyra smiled and rubbed the fabric over her belly with a small, dirty hand. "Two moonturns."

"It's about time we have some little ones making a mess of the place and not just old men like you." A man emerged from a curtain separating the one off-shooting room in the back. His mousey hair was greased back and hung limply to his shoulders, a reddish scraggly beard covered most of his chin and neck. Gendry chuckled from the doorway. The home looked half destroyed as it were, but he would never have noticed had he not spent the past few years in a castle.

Gendry had known Ryland back when they were both unwashed boys nicking bread and running from guard dogs through the streets of Flea Bottom. He had even gotten Ryland a few years as a smith's apprentice before the gold cloaks came for him, though he heard it ended up being more sweeping metal shavings and filling buckets than actual smithing.

The three of them ate the food Gendry had brought with him quickly. It seemed cruel to tell them of his own life, complaining about the people who contributed to his wealth just by existing on his lands or telling stories about the antics of his court. Instead, he listened as Ryland described the small smithy he had managed to open after the sacking of the capital; he had a new apprentice, a nephew of Melyra's, who was utterly incapable of putting the tools where they belonged. Melyra spoke of the babe she'd soon bring into the world. She still mended clothes for the seamstress two streets over, but the metalwork would bring enough coin for her to stop until the child slept through the night. Gendry did not mention the child they had lost in the burning of the city, a young wisp of a thing that he had met when she was first born just two weeks before Davos fetched him for their journey north.

The sun was still in its final hours when their evening finished. Melyra rubbed her stomach absentmindedly while Ryland refilled his ale; Gendry's hands found the small sack within his otherwise empty bag and slid it underneath the table, blocking it from Ryland's view with his leg and foot. They had this argument nearly every time he returned to King's Landing, and he and Melyra had decided it was best to keep it out of sight. Gendry was a proud man himself- he could understand his friend's reluctance to accept the gold dragons and silver stags that now sat beneath his table. Melyra thanked him with her eyes and he smiled kindly in return.

The two men embraced briefly before Melyra walked with him to the stairwell.

"Thank you," she said softly while hugging him as best she could with her swollen belly between them.

"I'll try to get some things sent down here in the next few months," Gendry responded, gesturing towards her future child.

Melyra thanked him a second time and walked back through the door. Being around them again made Gendry feel strangely lonely - this could have been his life, had he stayed in the capital. He might have had a wife of his own caressing her stomach and dreaming of the child they would soon bring into the world. Of course, he might also have been burned alive or crushed by the Dragon Queen's destruction.

The fact that he had narrowly escaped death on many occasions was not lost on him. Though much of the city was under construction, piles of rubble still cluttered the narrow streets of Flea Bottom. Every ashen heap of burnt stone reminded him how unlikely his survival would have been had he never gone off with Davos. Few he knew had survived that. Davos had told him of the ways their own soldiers had turned on the people, gutting and raping innocent civilians like it was sport. He tried to stifle the gory images his mind conjured and pushed onwards, up the hill towards the castle.

"If it isn't the only other low-born lord," a voice rang out behind him. Gendry tensed; lowborn or not, he had never taken to the lord of Highgarden.

"Ser Bronn." His voice came out more tired than he expected and he wondered if it was obvious that he did not want the man's company.

"Headed to the Cherry Pit?"

"No, starting the journey back to Storm's End once I find Ser Davos," Gendry explained.

"Ah come on, I'll pay for the first round of ales." The cutthroat-turned-lord steered him by his shoulders before he could refuse.

The Cherry Pit was a brothel located deep along the Street of Silk. Although they sold basic food and drink, its visitors came with only one purpose. The guard outside nodded at Bronn and didn't seem to notice Gendry at all.

They sat at an open table nestled against a curtained wall; a beautiful woman with chestnut ringlets flowing over full breasts somewhat covered by a sheer lavender gown quickly brought them each a large ale. Gendry tried to ignore the way her light brown eyes stayed glued to his as she slid him his overflowing cup.

"You've never come with me," Bronn said after taking a long drink.

"Not particularly fond of paying for a woman." He had never understood the appeal.

"Try it once. Trust me, you'll see why we pay for these ones." Bronn drank again and stared at the dozen women working the floor. Some were topless and others wore thin shifts that showed their bodies as if they wore nothing but smoke - all were beautiful.

"I'm sure they're quite experienced," Gendry replied before sipping from his ale. The barkeep had watered it down so much he had to inspect that it wasn't entirely clear. "It's the purchasing them part I don't like." That was true. He had seen enough people sold and bought like pigs for slaughter to be comfortable believing these women were fully involved in their decision to be here. "Besides, doesn't knowing she's only in it for a coin steal the joy from it?"

Bronn was distracted by a freckle-covered redhead walking towards him.

"Fuck, don't fuck, I don't care. I'm fucking as I please." He smiled at the approaching woman and pulled her by her exposed waist onto his lap. Gendry rolled his eyes at the obvious farce of her fake giggle and drank more of his diluted ale.

A woman with intricate black hair and almond eyes that glowed from afar inserted herself into his view a few tables over. He looked away, but it was too late. The woman sashayed over, taking extra time to sway her rounded hips with each step. She feigned interest in the contents of his cup as an opportunity to brush her breasts against his shoulder. Gendry ignored her awkwardly.

"M'lord," she said throatily as she stroked his arm. He drained his ale and put down a silver stag before shaking his head at her and walking back out onto the street.

Brothels were a waste. All the women in this world who would willingly sleep with a man for free, and some still chose to waste their coin.

The night air was thick in his lungs as he walked back towards the Red Keep, hoping desperately that Davos would be in his quarters - the less time he spent here, the better. Davos was peacefully seated in his room when Gendry knocked and slowly opened the door, his nose deep in a book about naval strategy. The Onion Knight quickly folded the corner of the page he was reading and walked over to the already-packed saddle bag waiting by the door. The book remained in his hand as he walked with Gendry to his adjacent room and then out to the stables to begin their ride south.

...

.

...

**Arya**

King's Landing looked infinitely better than it had when she'd left. Large structures dotted the skyline, children skipped rocks along the shore - there was life again.

Arya took a nervous breath and turned to her companions on the ship's deck.

"I imagine I'll return in the morning. Are you sure you don't want to come with me? My brother would show you no limit of comforts." One of the three smiled kindly at her.

"We are here better," another said, her translation still causing her to misorder words with slight inaccuracy.

"I look forward to exploring the men," joked the woman who had smiled. Arya snorted and shook her head in amusement.

"They don't bathe as much here," she warned her. "Just be back by mid-day tomorrow and we'll leave for White Harbor."

They nodded and she started down to the ramp leading back to the main docks. Arya Stark had returned to Winterfell.

Podrick Payne met her just moments after she had reached the cobblestones that led from the shore. "Lady Stark," he called warmly. It had been years since Arya had heard anyone refer to her as that.

"Podrick," she responded, glad to see a familiar face.

"King Bran said we'd find you here. I hope your travels were all you wanted them to be." He seemed more muscular now, but was largely the same as he had been when she left King's Landing four years prior. She noticed that he moved more like a fighter now, subconsciously shifting his weight to be ready to parry a blow at any moment. A white cloak was pinned to his armour.

"You're a knight," she observed aloud, "I should be calling you Ser."

Podrick flushed and smiled in discomfort with her excitement. "I just followed Ser Brienne. Still, not bad for a lad who thought he was going to die for stealing a ham."

They made good time walking up to the Red Keep as Podrick told Arya of his many endeavors serving under Ser Brienne in the Kingsguard. It was less than half an hour before they entered the gates; Arya was surprised to see they had been mostly rebuilt after escaping their destruction the last time she had been within the castle grounds. Stepping through the main gates, she tried her best to stop the screaming and scent of burning flesh she knew existed only in her mind.

Podrick paused before the Throne Room, opening the left door for her to enter.

Arya had not seen the throne room since her childhood - it was not on her route with Sandor and she had not wished to see it again after Jon had killed Daenerys. The room had changed greatly in the many years that had passed since then - it had been over 10, she realized with a sense of surprise. Gone were the lavish marble floors and massive, elaborately-decorated columns; in their place was a floor of dark, well-polished wood and columns of dark stone. It looked positively Northern. Visitors still were kept at a distance from the king, though now he sat upon a smooth stone platform elevated a hip's distance from the ground. Arya figured there must be a ramp somewhere behind him that she could not see. At the center of the tree grew a young sapling. _A weirwood,_ Arya thought with delight. Bran had seemed so far removed from his past self, from his family, when she had seen him last. These breaths of the North blew into a gust of pride.

"Sister," he greeted her. His voice was still as distant as it was when she left, but there was a tiny undercurrent of happiness beneath it.

Arya ran around up the back of the platform and embraced him.

"Princess Arya," Ser Brienne's voice was firm, not unlike the way her mother's had been when warning her while around lords and ladies in her childhood. She hadn't properly considered the fact that Bran's kingship made her royalty as well - that was conceivably just as true with Sansa's status as Queen in the North.

"My apologies Ser Brienne, it has been too long." Arya smiled at Brienne and nodded; she knew the knight was not one for physicality.

Bran asked a servant to bring them lunch and Arya wheeled him over to a table bathed in coloured light that poured in through the stained glass above them. She realized in horror that this particular panel had an image of her on it - her body was held up by an icy hand around her throat, her dagger moments away from plunging deep into the heart of the Night King. Arya looked back towards her brother and took a seat.

"I was nearly certain you'd arrive yesterday," he said. His eyes were creased in the way they always were when he was trying to understand the various parts of a problem he hadn't yet solved.

"I had hoped to arrive the day before yesterday, actually. One of my crew fell ill and we had to stop in Greenstone for two days until he passed. Bran nodded as if his mind was still processing her words.

"You went to the Stormlands." She ignored the knowing tone of his voice. Her crew had not come across House Estermont while they were there; they had not interacted with anyone of nobility. Besides, the sun had long since bleached the direwolf from her sails and she had not used her real name. The Lord of the Stormlands would never know she had been there, even if that role were somehow still filled by a certain former smith.

The serving girl returned with two small plates and a tray of cheese, bread, and smoked meats.

"Thank you," Arya said, smiling into the girl's hazel eyes. She nodded quietly and backed away from them without a word.

Arya dove for the cheese, not even bothering to stack some on her plate before devouring it. "Mmm," she savored, "I missed cheese."

"They don't have cheese west of Westeros?"

Arya shook her head as she swallowed the massive chunk of sharp, salty food. "No cows," she answered simply. It occurred to her suddenly that Bran of all people should have known that already. She took a knife of another, softer cheese and spread it across the fresh bread; the flavors melted beautifully in her mouth. "Bran, could you not see me in the West?"

He looked up at the stained glass above them.

"Glimpses. Enough to know you were still alive, a few flashes of injuries and fear." Arya studied his face as he spoke. He had grown a beard in the years she was gone, though it still struggled fill out properly. The wiry auburn hairs framed his mouth and jaw but were still sparse along his cheeks, like a forest regrowing in the early years after a lightning storm. "It seems there are no weirwood trees there?"

It all worked itself out in her mind now; that tree within his platform was only an extension of Bran's eagerness to have a weirwood in the South. It was never the nostalgic emblem of the North she had been so proud to see - it simply increased his powers as the Three Eyed Raven. Something about that realization made her feel oddly empty. Bran was not Brandon Stark, he was Bran the Broken, King of the Six Kingdoms and fabled greenseer. Arya focused on breaking down a particularly hard piece of dried pork with her teeth as she considered it.

"I heard about Yara's Rebellion," she said when she had worked through the meat and finally felt the silence between them become too heavy. "As soon as we got to Lonely Light I knew something was wrong." She had even considered wearing another face, but no one recognized her. "They told me you killed her after she stormed the capital."

"Not me. Ser Brienne," Bran said coolly as he looked to his kingsguard. If Brienne heard them, she made no indication; her soft blue eyes continued to stare off at nothing in particular.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here. I should have protected you." Arya hadn't slept for days after hearing the news. Someone had tried to kill her brother while she was out selfishly frolicking around new lands.

"You were where you were supposed to be. You found your way back when it was time for you to return." His words were simple on the surface, but still dug deep into her gut. She wasn't _supposed_ to be west of Westeros, she was supposed to be making sure her pack was safe. Arya took a sip of the watered wine before them and looked to the weirwood sapling. She wondered if Bran had it ripped from its home in the North just to force it to King's Landing, then cursed herself for thinking so bitterly.

"How is Sansa?" She asked, turning back towards her brother with genuine interest and hope.

"She is well," he said as he sipped his own goblet. "The position of Queen in the North suits her, but you already know that." Arya felt her mouth turn upwards at the image - Sansa ruling their home, this time as its own kingdom. She could picture her sister, always so regal and perfect, effortlessly commanding men to collect more grain or stockpile a particular fort. Her dark copper hair would be perfectly plaited and pinned just so above her face, likely wrapped around a crown of some sort, and her dresses would remain creaseless and clean. Arya was sure Sansa hadn't slouched or even breathed too loudly in years; she was even more sure that she was the ruler the North deserved.

"And Jon?

Bran looked at her with a soft smile.

"Jon is happier now than he ever could have been south of the Wall." Arya returned his smile. "He lives with the Wildlings now, a King Beyond the Wall in all but official title."

"Has he left the Night's Watch, then?"

Bran looked off towards the tray between them.

"There isn't a Night's Watch, not really." That made sense - between the extinction of the White Walkers and improved relations with the freefolk, there was no need for a Watch at all.

"You knew that when he was sentenced." It wasn't a question. Bran smirked but did not reply.

"He's a father now." Arya felt her eyes water at the thought; Jon would make an excellent father. She wanted desperately to meet her little niece or nephew, to teach them to fight and hold them as they dozed off by a fire or tuck them into bed after they had run themselves into a deep exhaustion.

"Has he come south? Or do you write him?" She knew it was unlikely, but couldn't help but ask. If there was a way for her to connect with her favourite sibling, she would learn it.

Bran was quiet for a moment. "No," he finally stated simply. Arya couldn't shake the feeling that there was more he hadn't told her.

She wanted to ask more questions, to learn the names of Jon's child and its mother and find out if Sansa had been betrothed to some lord Arya had long ago forgotten. She did not want to ask about the lord Bran had referred to earlier - that was information she neither needed nor wanted. Arya did not ask any of it, instead chewing a rough heel of bread. She looked again to the weirwood sapling and studied it further. It would be generations, perhaps whole lifetimes before it was even half the size of its relatives in the godswood of Winterfell.

"I've told grandmaester Tarly to expect you later today." Arya looked back at her brother and nodded.

They sat in silence for nearly an hour after that, until Bran finally pushed back from the table enough for Arya to know he was just as ready for their meeting to end as she was. She pushed him wordlessly up the ramp to his platform, then embraced him once more before hopping off the front.

"Arya," Bran called to her. She turned around to face him. "House Stark owes Lord Baratheon a great favour." She felt her heart drop into her gut. What was he talking about? "Lord Gendry risked his life for me during Yara's Rebellion. I would not be here without him."

Arya tried her best to keep her face calm at his statement. It felt random and forced, like he was bringing it up only to measure her response.

"He always was quiet honorable." she carefully settled upon those words - they seemed appropriate, respectful but distant.

"Yes, he's a good man and an astute lord. He and Ser Davos managed to convince Dorne to stay neutral during the war."

Arya looked at her brother skeptically. _Gendry with a mind for politics?_ The thought alone seemed ludicrous. For just a moment, Bran's eyes glinted with something like wordless directive. She was certain she imagined it.

Bran excused himself for a meeting with his Master of Coin and Arya headed off to the library, where she had a feeling she'd find Samwell Tarly.

The serving girl who had brought them their lunch escorted her through open, winding halls to a large pair of oaken doors in the south wing of the castle.

"The library, m'lady," she said before struggling to push open a heavy door. Arya pushed open the other one with ease and looked the girl over. She was small, shorter even than Arya, but thinner. She likely hadn't eaten consistently in her childhood, and her movement suggested fragile bones.

Arya handed her a silver stag. "For bread or soup," she said while trying not to show the guilt she felt. The girl went to reject it but ultimately nervously accepted after seeing Arya narrow her eyes; her feet scurried off quickly as Arya entered the doorway.

The library was gorgeous and lonely - an expanse of thick wooden bookcases stretching up until they reached a walkway that wound around the top section of the room, crowded with yet more heavy shelves. The collection had clearly taken damage during Daenerys' sacking of the city; many of the shelves were filled only half-way. Arya stepped forward and inhaled the scent of parchment, old boiled leather, and horse-hoof glue, a familiar smell that carried her mind off to afternoons spent locked in her room with only a few books to entertain her after her mother or septa had caught her doing something improper. She smiled softly at the memory.

"Lady Stark!" Bran had told her the maester would be ready for her, but he seemed caught off guard.

"Grandmaester Tarly," Arya replied kindly. He was a friend of Jon, and any friend of Jon was a friend of hers. She wondered briefly how he had become a maester already, yet alone a grandmaester. Had he circumvented his training at the citadel? Or, perhaps maester training was less intensive than Maester Luwin had described. "I hope you are as well as you appear," He did look to be well - his eyes had lost the anxiety and insecurity they always shouted in Winterfell. "And that your children and Gilly are healthy and happy."

Sam grinned and nodded, his brown eyes wide. "They are well, my lady. We're expecting a third in a few moonturns."

Arya felt her smile return as she took in his words. "That's wonderful," she said. "Have you spoken with Jon at all?"

Sam pursed his lips and looked at her strangely, then shook his head. "We sent ravens back and forth a few times at first, but I haven't received anything in years. I stopped writing, eventually." His voice rose as if he were asking a question, but his face looked quite sad. Arya did not know how to respond; she simply nodded and looked towards the tall pile of scrolls on a table behind him.

"I've had these copied and extended so you might mark them as you please. Bran said you'd be bringing your own maps?"

Arya nodded and walked towards the table, sliding a bare hand across the glossy black paint. She opened the large satchel sitting upon her right hip and removed four scrolls one at a time. The first was the largest. A map detailing masses of brown, green, and blue unfurled to take up most of the table; it was carefully marked in neat handwriting, with each symbol corresponding to a perfectly organized key.

"I contracted a cartographer," Arya explained hastily. "This is the best of the maps. I didn't get as far in the lands of the West as I would have liked, but the locals tell me it extends so far in every direction that they've never heard of someone seeing two ends in one lifetime.

The second map was smaller but equally as professional. A large river spanned the scroll, framed by mountains to the north and east, an expansive lake to the west, and green land to the south. "Is this a forest or plains?" Sam pointed a plump finger to the land extending beyond the river. The number eight was written across its center, but there was no matching number in the key.

"It's mostly forest. It's all detailed here," she rummaged in her bag for a pile of small leather-bound books. Each had a number burnt into the decaying leather covers. She flipped through the pages and found the one with a large eight across the top section of the page. "This is Ohnasagenarat, a large village where I stayed for nearly a year. One of the crew who returned with me, Niiotha, is from here." Sam's beady eyes looked at her suspiciously.

"My lady, are you saying you brought foreigners across the Sunset Sea?"

"They welcomed me in their homelands, I'm happy to do the same for them in Westeros." Sam nodded uneasily.

"Do you think they'd be open to a trip to Oldtown? I think the Citadel would benefit from meeting them and learning of their homes."

Arya shifted her weight as she considered the proper response. She would not let her friends be poked and prodded like cattle so that the maesters might feel more intelligent. "I can ask them." She quickly moved to the third scroll.

This map was clearly not drawn by a cartographer - a ragged shape laid in the center, something vaguely resembling a circle with two fat, uneven legs and a rough outline. "Our cartographer didn't last the entire trip," she explained when she saw the look of utter confusion upon the grandmaester's round face. "I'm afraid it's much less detailed here, and I'm fairly certain it isn't to scale. I did try to include as much as I could in this, though." she handed him another small notebook, this one burned with a 3.

The final map was essentially just a stiff rag of blue dotted like the egg of a gull with occasional blobs of brown and white.

"They're supposed to be islands," she explained. No people lived there, but there were many interesting animals."

"That'll be in the last book, I suppose." Arya nodded and reached for the final contents of her bag.

"I have a few more that detail the people. There are some descriptions of their cultures, rough transcriptions and translations of their languages, and a general explanation of a day in their worlds." The people had been Arya's favorite part of traveling; everywhere she went there was a smiling babe grasping at her hand or a kind elderly woman eager to feed her and tell her about her life.

"I plan to go to the Citadel once I've visited Sansa in the North. Hopefully I can answer any questions and fill in any gaps left by my records."

Sam smiled at her excitedly. "That would be lovely."

Arya turned and walked back through the thick doors. She had scarcely gotten around the corner when she heard labored breathing and quick, heavy steps running after her.

"Lady Stark! Er, Princess Arya?" The original title had been bad enough, but this princess nonsense was not going to last long if she had any say over it. She unscrunched her nose and turned to face Grandmaester Tarly. "If you see Jon - on your journeys up north, I mean - can you tell him I say 'hello?' And about the child, if you can?"

She nodded quietly in commitment.

Sam thanked her and shuffled back to the library; Arya wondered sadly if he knew that Jon had a child of his own now.

Images of Jon and his new family flowed endlessly in her mind as she walked back to the throne room. She could picture them frolicking in the snow, Jon still in his Stark furs with a curly-haired babe gleefully seated upon his shoulders, Ghost nuzzling the baby as it slept, a beautiful wildling woman scolding them both for putting too much wood in the fire. She focused on the warmth radiating from her stomach rather than the loneliness panging somewhere below her lungs. Imagining Jon's happy family was the first swallow of rum on a cold day - it spread through her core like warm candle wax.

At least one of the Starks deserved a happy family. Maybe one day it would happen for Sansa, too. Mayhap she'd find herself a handsome lord of a kind disposition and gentle hands. Arya hoped she already had.

She arrived to find the throne room empty. Bran had gone off to a series of meetings, Podrick explained to her. He found her a serving girl, this one different from the one who had brought her to the library, to take her to her room and see to it that she had what she needed for the evening.

"Bran will have someone find you in time for dinner," he assured her before they ascended a staircase to the visitors' chambers.

The evening passed with less interest than Arya would have expected for her first night back on the mainlands of Westeros. Dinner, although delicious, passed without incident. She found herself yearning for the liveliness of those with whom she'd shared the sea. The hours after dinner were no better. She wanted to get up and leave her room, to go find her crew and drink with them, break up a fight or two, maybe get into a fight of her own - she could not. Arya focused instead on her balance; her sea-tired legs needed a reminder of their power. She water-danced around her room, practicing her strikes and speed until there was a knock at the door.

A man stood before her wearing a white cloak. He had a short beard of little more than grey stubble and thinning dark hair that receded from a prominent widow's peak to mostly bare temples; his nose appeared to have been broken at least twice, and his lips were thin and dry.

"Princess Arya, I heard a commotion." There it was again, that damned title.

"I'm fine," Arya insisted with an even-tempered voice. "I was just practicing my bladecraft." The man twisted his small mouth before nodding. "If you'd like to arrange for someone to spar with you in the morrow -"

"I'll be returning north tomorrow, but thank you," He nodded curtly. "Good night, Ser." She closed and latched the door as soon as she had finished the sentence, unconcerned with courtesies. It was reasonable for Bran to post someone outside of her door, she reminded herself. Still, it made her uneasy.

Arya wiped her face with the washing bowl and looked towards the window open in her room. The pane was cracked on side, its pins bent out of place as if it had been struck violently. The quality of the wood on either side of the gash made her think it had happened recently, but her knowledge of woodwork was not so good that she could be sure it hadn't happened during the Dragon Queen's destruction. Outside, the city was quieter than she'd have expected - perhaps King's Landing had never fully recovered from the devastation.

Arya left the window open and lit the half-used candle that sat askew on the mahogany writing desk below it. The room, as off-putting as it had felt when she first arrived, grew on her with time. She removed her clothing and changed into a thin night dress to lie frustratingly far from sleep in the large bed. There was something familiar about this, something about the texture of the sheets and the feeling of the air - she couldn't be sure what it was. Perhaps she had entered this room when staying in the castle as a child. Yes, she decided, that must be it.

The floor was cold against her feet as she fetched a fur from the chest in the corner and laid it over the sheets. Satin was too slippery for her to sleep properly, and she'd need sleep before her journey. She tried to imagine how Sansa might react at the surprise of her sister's visit - she could imagine those Tully blue eyes widening with delighted shock, or perhaps narrowing with disapproval that she hadn't given Winterfell the time to prepare. No matter how she reacted, Arya would be happy to see her again. Could Sansa know how to reach Jon? Mayhap she had an idea of where his camp was. Arya would gladly ride north of the Wall if it meant a chance to see her brother.

Eventually imagination overtook her restless mind and pulled her into dreams of wandering snow-covered lands with a family far less troubled than that she had left.

Morning came quickly, and Arya awoke with a start, eager to begin her day. After giving the scrolls to Grandmaester Tarly the day before, she had only a mostly empty bag and a few weapons to count among her belongings off of her ship.

Podrick returned to bring her to breakfast, where he, Tyrion, Brienne, and Bran accompanied her. A feast of fresh fruits, sweetbreads, and honeyed goats milk awaited them. Arya's hunger rose over her manners again, and she found herself swallowing the food without properly chewing it. She did not care.

"Lady Stark," Arya was grateful to Tyrion for not referring to her as royalty, "Your brother has said you experienced much adventure in the West. Are you planning to share your knowledge with the maesters?"

"Aye," she replied between sips of milk."I met with Samwell Tarly yesterday and informed him of my plan to visit the Citadel after I reunite with Sansa."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate it greatly. Just think of all the books they'll craft with your intel." Arya thought she heard a slight tone of bitterness in his voice.

"They will write what they choose to," she supposed. That didn't mean it would be accurate.

"Have you written the Queen in the North of your impending arrival?" The last Lannister asked her. It was easy to forget that he had been married to Sansa once - she wondered if they remained in contact. "No, I was hoping to surprise her."

Brienne smiled across the table at the innocence of the thought.

"Ser Brienne," Arya asked her, curious as to why she had not yet heard anything of substance from Westeros' first female knight, "Have you visited the Sapphire Isle since becoming Lord Commander?"

Brienne looked at her solemnly.

"I have not." Arya felt foolish for asking. Of course someone as honorable as Ser Brienne would not take temporary leave to see her family. "I do write my father somewhat frequently. He says Lord Baratheon is an excellent liege lord and that Tarth benefits greatly from his leadership." Brienne eyed her kindly while speaking, and Arya quickly filled her mouth with the nearest sweetbread. She could feel Bran's cool gaze upon her again.

"That's good," she managed feebly. Her wits returned to her and she thought of her lady mother. "I'm sure your family misses you dearly." The words sounded like something Sansa might say, not her. Brienne smiled sadly and nodded before looking to Podrick.

"Ser Podrick, I believe it's time for your rounds." The young man nodded and excused himself. Arya wished she had a reason to exit in his place.

The others chatted casually over their meal, and Arya was more cautious with her questions this time. She listened to Tyrion's explanation of the architectural changes they were implementing in the capital, and sat patiently as he spoke for nearly twenty minutes without pause to describe his plan to stimulate the healing economy of King's Landing and put more money in the hands of the kingdom. "To be invested back into the city," he assured her when he caught her brows raising in judgment.

Finally their time came to a merciful end. Arya hugged her brother tight against her to bid him farewell and smiled warmly at Ser Brienne and Lord Tyrion.

Her small feet could not lead her back to her ship fast enough.

Niiotha was the first to greet her; she waved cheerfully from where she was perched upon the prow of the ship. Arya climbed up to the adjacent side and inquired as to her evening. Niiotha was an interesting woman - she could stitch someone just as quickly as she could bleed them dry, and she enjoyed anything remotely alcoholic. Niiotha's dark brown eyes glimmered as she pointed towards the main cabin of the ship with her full lips.

A man was emerging, his sandy hair an utter disaster and his cloak turned with wrong side facing out. The two women laughed at the sight.

"Hey, get down to this place and aid," Yuisaraq shouted. Arya noted that she had to practice the Common Tongue with her more and slid down to help her with the ropes. The woman was taller than Arya but not as tall as Niiotha, with shoulder-length hair gathered roughly into a quick bun; her dextrous brown hands easily uncoiled the mainsheet and began to raise the sail so that they might depart.

"I thought you said mid-day," a groggy voice complained. Palomai stood before her, his chest bare and his eyes still half-closed.

"We're all here, why wait?" Niiotha argued with him every chance she got.

"You look rough," Arya laughed. He glared at her in response.

"He and I only return a few hours ago. We wanted explored the city for days. Do you know there's a total street of just bread?" Yuisaraq didn't talk often, and her excitement caught Arya off guard. Had she been this excited when her ship first came ashore in the West?

"Bread? There's an entire street where they just make weapons! Street of Metal, they called it."

"The Street of Steel," Arya corrected absentmindedly.

"Look at these!" Niiotha sprinted to her cabin and back in just a few seconds before pulling a number of steel daggers out from a burlap bag.

"Too small," the man observed, "look at Arya's face, she's seen better." She had - she had seen better not only in the Valyrian steel dagger that still sat upon her hip, but hastily created out of dragonglass in preparation to defeat an incoming army of the dead.

Yuisaraq finished hoisting up the sail and steered them from the harbor.

"Now we go north, right?" Niiotha asked them excitedly. She had told them all about Winterfell and the North, and the friendliest of her crew was thrilled to see the land of her tales.

"Actually, we're going south first. I'd like to visit an old friend."


	2. Chapter 2 - Storm's End

_**Chapter 2 - Storm's End**_

**Gendry**

"Might we break for lunch soon, my lord?" A heavyset man with curls the color of flame looked to Gendry hopefully, a long scroll cascading from his small hands onto the floor below them.

"A few more first." The Lord of Storm's End was hours into hearing petition for the first time in three weeks. If the annual council meeting in King's Landing hadn't wasted enough of his time, the week of travel on either end had kept him from much of his duties. He'd need to work twice as hard for the next few weeks to make up for it. "Who's next?"

"Yomen Lonmouth, his nephew manages two of our larger granaries." Gendry nodded and beckoned the man forward.

"My lord -"

"Lord Lonmouth, we have dined together many times. Please, there is no need for titles." Titles still made him uncomfortable - they existed only to remind one where they stood on the social spectrum, to be used either amongst the nobility in self-congratulation or to be stammered by those reminding themselves of their inferiority.

Yomen nodded and continued, "I am fortunate to claim responsibility of the largest granaries in the region, both located on my lands in Summerhall. As you know, this Winter has been a mild one, but sometimes mild winters can be worse for the land than harsh ones. The ground has frozen and thawed too often, and my serfs tell me the winter crop may not take. Although our granaries still flow with the barley and wheat of our Autumn harvest, I worry that we shall not have much to reap come Spring."

Gendry nodded and tried not to appear nervous. He had felt the claws of hunger throughout his early years, he would do whatever it took to stop them from digging into his people.

"Have your men weigh and measure what is in your granary so that we might determine a ration should we need it. I will write to the the Reach to plan to import from them when we reach the final half of your stores." Yomen looked to him in agreement. "Please return or write in two moonturns' time to tell me how we are progressing. Thank you, Lord Yomen."

The man thanked him in return and left the hall. To Gendry's left, the red-haired man scribed something upon his flowing parchment.

"Next?"

"A woman from a lower house who requires your input on her daughter's marriage." Gendry furrowed his brow; he was not a matchmaker. He called the woman forward, surprised to see she had brought three children with her. One was likely the girl the woman wanted to speak of, an unruly looking thing who looked to be around six and ten - the hem of her faded maroon dress was smeared with mud and her thin, straw-colored hair was plaited messily. The second was a boy still too young to properly swing a sword; Gendry noticed that his boots were clean, despite his sister's filthy gown. A second daughter stood behind the eldest. Her golden curls were all that were visible until she peeked out from behind her sister with wide, nervous eyes the color of the sea.

"Thank you, my lord," the woman began. Gendry knew from his own experience that telling her to call him by his given name would only confuse her on their barriers. "I am sorry to trouble you with such things. My daughter, Marla, will not hear reason. Her father fell fighting for Lord Stannis and is not here to make her see sense. Marla is betrothed to Tarlyn Whitehead - it is a good match for us. His house is kind and comfortable, and their fisheries produce well. I have spent years saving up for Marla's dowry to Lord Tarlyn, and we are nearly able to finalize a decent offer. But Marla threatens to throw this all away." Gendry leaned forward in interest. "She has fallen for a boy in our village and says she will not marry Tarlyn." He watched the girl scrunch her brow and blow a wisp of hair from her narrowed eyes. "I know I do not need to explain to you, Lord Baratheon, but this would devastate our house. The Whiteheads would surely be offended by the breaking of their betrothal, and Marla would disgrace us by lying with a ewerer."

"Marla, please step forward." The girl did so, curtsying clumsily as she avoided his gaze. "What can you tell me of this ewerer?"

She looked at her mother, then at Gendry, finally settling to stare at her feet as she spoke.

"He is a kind man, m'lord. His name is Prennick. We have been friends for many years. He takes whatever work he can get and treats me kindly. When there is trouble in the village, Prennick always finds me to be sure I'm safe; he gives his extra bread to children and sometimes does work without pay just so those who need it will have the labor." Marla's face lit from within as she spoke of the boy.

"Thank you," he directed himself towards the mother, "Does House Whitehead have any other children?"

"A daughter of four and ten."

"And your son, how many years does he have?"

"Two and ten." She eyed him suspiciously. Gendry knew it was considered abnormal to wed the only daughter of a house to a lower one, but he saw no issue. Their age difference mattered not, despite the face it was unorthodox - plenty of grown men married girls half their age, a woman two years senior of her husband should not stop a betrothal.

"Mayhap the little lady Whitehead should befriend your boy. If the match is good, they may wed in the place of your eldest." Marla grinned but her mother looked as if she had been slapped.

"It is clear that your daughter loves this man. I will cover the costs of a wedding."

"But my lord, he holds no lands. He hasn't even a family name."

"Neither did I, before the Dragon Queen legitimized my status as a Baratheon. Life may be equally as kind to this ewerer; even if he remains such throughout his years, surely love will be a fitting reward for him and his wife." The woman gaped at him, then glared at her daughter. Marla looked into Gendry's eyes with gratitude and he smiled softly in return.

"Thank you, m'lord!" She said loudly as her mother mumbled false courtesies and walked over to a chancellor who would take their information so that the castle could find them later to pay for the wedding.

Gendry looked to the man furiously writing every detail in his records. When the quill had finished its hurricane of ink, he inquired as to how many more were waiting.

"Twenty three, my lord."

"Anything interesting?"

"Hmm," the man stroked his red beard as he thought aloud, "a man who claims his neighbor's cattle are grazing on his lands -"

"Is that interesting these days?" They both chuckled.

"Some foreigners bring gifts from across the sea." Gendry shook his head. He wasn't going to waste petition to be given some silks from Essos - if they really wanted to gift him something they would come back another day. Besides, gifts were almost always a ploy to get something in return.

"A woman needs resolution for having missed a week's work." He nodded. That might be something there he could have actual impact on.

The woman was brought before him, her shoulders slumped forward and her eyes red and puffed as though she had been crying.

"Th- thank you for hearing from me, m'lord. I have never come for petition before, I hope I am not out of line."

"A lord's job is to keep his people well, you are always welcome to air your grievances and tell me how I can better serve." Gendry knew this wasn't entirely true; plenty of lords would say their job was to "represent" their lands by drinking Dornish wine and wearing fine clothes.

The woman swallowed and continued, "I work in the kitchen of an inn. The innkeep is a kind man who allows me and my son to stay in our own bed for part of my pay. Last week my son fell ill with fever. He was shaking and could not keep down even water," she was crying again, her tears spilling upon her grease-stained linen shift. "I was so afraid to leave him. I did not leave our room but to fetch water and change his chamber pot. Now the innkeep says I owe him for the time we stayed in the room, but I do not know how we can pay."

"Where is your son now?" Gendry's voice came out soft with concern.

"He is back at the inn. It is but a few minutes from your gates, and he is well enough again to be left for an hour or two." He nodded and felt his eyes move around as he thought.

"Might the innkeep allow you to add on to your current role for a few weeks? Mayhap you could assist in the readying of rooms or take on the jobs of the scullions?" The woman nodded half-heartedly. Gendry knew this was not a real solution - those scullions would need work if the woman did their job. "I will inquire, but I do not think Storm's End is so full that we could not benefit from another set of hands in the kitchen. If you are open to the idea, I would be pleased to speak with my castellan to see if we might find you work and a room."

The woman looked up at him hopefully.

"In the meantime, tell your innkeep that his lord commands he find extra jobs for you to do until you pay off your debt." _His lord commands -_ the words felt pretentious falling from his lips.

"Thank you, m'lord." She shuffled out with dry eyes and a high head.

"Pylon," Gendry called to the plump man writing beside him, "I think we'll need to return to this tomorrow. I'll take my lunch in the smithy and will see you all at dinner tonight." The man nodded and went to tell those gathered that they would continue hearing petition the next day.

Gendry rose from his stiff wooden chair and breathed deeply. His legs were still sore from the ride from King's Landing, and he longed to lie down and sleep for a few hours. Instead, he walked through the large metal doors to the muddy outskirts of the castle grounds, where a forge laid dormant waiting for him.

...

.

...

**Arya**

Storm's End was as impressive as it was told to be in the stories. Although she had not been able to sail directly to it, she had seen the castle from the deck of her ship. It stood high and proud above the oceanside cliffs, its simple rounded walls bafflingly thick to protect from storm and siege alike. Arya had always enjoyed the legends of the Stormlands, tales of Storm Kings and sea gods. Though their women were rarely mentioned, those that were named were fierce and steadfast. She had long admired Argella Durrandon, the ferocious Storm Queen who refused to bend the knee even when dragons roared overhead.

Shipbreaker Bay was too tempestuous for their ship to dock, so the crew of four had ridden north for two days from a small port just south of Mistwood. Palomai, Niiotha, and Yuisaraq entertained themselves at the inn while Arya stuck to the shadows to find the Lord of Storm's End.

She should have known he'd be in the forge. Despite all of Bran and Ser Brienne's insistence that he was excelling as a lord, Gendry would always remain a smith at heart. Perhaps that was truly what made him such a good lord, Arya considered. The blow of fire and a rhythmic pounding of metal carried through the air - she was getting closer. The mud below her feet was slick, but she remained surefooted as she rounded a corner and saw the smithy. It had two parts, a large indoor area she imagined was of particular use during the weather that gave the region its name, and an outdoor forge behind a massive granite counter shaped like an "L."

She paused as she saw him now, stifling the dread that was beginning to rise up like indigestion. Gendry looked good, even better than he had when she'd left; lordship suited him. His black hair was longer than she had ever seen it, brushed back to hang just past his ears. His facial hair was well-kept, not a full beard, but dark and soft-looking as it framed his mouth and jaw. Although fully clothed, the mixture of sweat and drizzling rain had caused his thin shirt to become sheer and stick to his musculature as he worked, revealing strength that had not gone to waste despite his new title.

He was smithing something too early in its life to have a recognizable structure.

Arya breathed and reminded herself this was harmless. He had saved Bran's life, she owed him a greeting, at the very least. If he didn't want to speak with her, she would leave the two chests of gifts with castellan. She would say hello, they might embrace, and he would tell her of his life - there was nothing to be concerned about. No matter what happened, she would head to the North in a day or two. Still, a feeling that this was a bad, bad decision crept up and choked at her like ivy retaking an unwelcome tree.

"Some things never change." She stepped from the muddy shadows and stood two yards before him.

Gendry stopped smithing and gripped his hammer tight in his hands, as if it might fly from him and never return. His eyes shut forcefully as he pressed his lips together and inhaled deeply. Arya had imagined seemingly infinite ways he might react to her return, this was not among them. She wondered if she ought to just run back to the inn now and immediately head to Winterfell; if she ran fast enough, she might get behind a wall or tree before he opened his eyes again.

His lids rose and he slowly raised his face to reveal skeptical blue eyes, the very blue eyes she had dreamt of just a few nights earlier.

"Is this… real?" The question broke her. Arya had expected him to be happy or surprised to see her, maybe angry, certainly not whatever this was. She should never have come.

She nodded and met his gaze, trying her best to smile reassuringly despite the fact her mouth would not move.

Suddenly the strange spell broke - the heavy air between them cleared and she felt as though she had control over her body again. Gendry exhaled sharply and set down his hammer to look her over. She felt strangely overheated as he took her in, as though she were the one an arm's length from a fiery forge.

Arya waited for him to make some sort of a quip, to joke about the fact that she still wore Needle upon her hip, or maybe a reference to her changed hair. He said nothing.

"Storm's End seems to be benefitting from its lord," she said awkwardly when she could no longer bear the silence. What had happened to her? This was a far cry from the banter they had once shared in the smithy of her home.

"Some might say it's benefitting from its King," he responded, deflecting the praise. Arya wondered if he understood how that response might be interpreted amidst whispers of rebellion and Baratheon bloodright.

"And yet the King said he benefitted from you." Building off of his words helped her feel like she was in control again. Gendry shrugged.

"You look well. Are you enjoying the Stormlands?" He sighed and took his hammer in his large hands. _That was a stupid question,_ Arya realized. What did it matter if he was enjoying them or not - they were his responsibility.

"They're pleasant. The weather isn't half as bad as Davos made it seem." Were they really just exchanging pleasantries like strangers? She wondered what had happened to the friendship that had always come easily to the two of them.

"How is Ser Davos?" She had enjoyed the time she spent with the older man - he had served Jon well and was almost certainly an asset for Gendry.

"He's well. He is home with his wife for the next week before returning to the capital." Why would - "He serves your brother as master of ships," he explained when Arya felt her brow raise in confusion. She hadn't had time to finish the question in her mind.

"And Lady Baratheon? Is she enjoying the Stormlands as well?"

Gendry's face fell. "Arya," he started softly.

"It's alright. I expected it. Besides, I did threaten to kill you myself if you waited." Humor helped; Gendry chuckled at the memory.

"That you did." His eyes caught sight of the weapon strapped to her left leg. "What is that?"

Arya grinned as she unsheathed the blade. "They call it a patalpeq," she said as she passed it to him. It was just longer than her forearm and curved slightly less than a Dothraki arakh, The center of the blade dipped down to make a channel for any blood, and the handle was made of bone and copper. Her favorite thing about the patalpeq was its color - it was made of a peculiar metal the likes of which Arya had never seen before journeying west, softer than gold but sharper than steel and a beautiful deep red color that turned nearly purple when heated. The bevel of this particular blade was coated in copper that glowed like embers whenever she sharpened it

"Is this painted?" He likely already knew it wasn't. She shook her head to confirm that it was untouched.

"I brought some for you to experiment with. We tried to gift it earlier, but there were too many people before us waiting to speak with you."

"Foreigners bringing gifts from across the sea," he muttered to himself, "I thought he meant the Narrow Sea."

"To be fair, we didn't tell him which."

Gendry looked the blade over once more and handed it back to her.

"It's good to see you again," he said with a genuine smile. Arya returned it. "You said 'we.' How many are with you?"

"Three of my crew remain. We have rooms in town." Gendry shook his head.

"I'll have my castellan arrange rooms for you. We'll host a feast to welcome you and hear about your journey west, just give me a day to sort out the preparation." Arya eyed him in amusement.

"Sounding like a proper lord."

"That may be the biggest surprise of all." They laughed and Arya felt the last of the dread release her throat and retreat. She stayed down there for another hour, watching as he hammered out what he explained would become a special shield for a knight from the Crownlands. Eventually she peeled herself away from his work and returned to the inn, where Niiotha and Palomai waited for her.

Niiotha waved a large mug of mead towards Arya when she saw her. "So?!" She yelled excitedly. She was in her cups, Arya was sure of it.

"We'll be staying at the castle; they're arranging rooms for us now. And tomorrow there will be a feast we need to attend."

Palomai eyed her skeptically. "Will the food be better than that shit we had yesterday?" His broad nose scrunched at the memory of overcooked root vegetables that had turned to a gluey paste within their stew.

Arya had no idea; she enjoyed sitting back and watching as the two friends bickered about what it would mean to be a good guest. Things were beginning to feel right.

...

.

...

**Gendry**

Castle staff spread like sand through an open hand as they finalized their preparations for a dinner feast. Gendry watched, wishing he had enough knowledge of these things to help. They were nearly finished setting up now - the main hall had been transformed into the feast structure they always managed whenever Storm's End hosted lords and ladies, with one long table set just above the others and a series of small circular tables filling the rest of the hall. His advisors had counseled him to invite the high houses of the Stormlands and representatives from Houses Estermont, Penrose, Grandison, and Wylde had already arrived; they took up space in the hall despite the serving staff still setting tables and lighting candles.

"This is certainly an unexpected pleasure." Davos stood beside him wearing a clean velvet tunic the color of a winter forest. He looked Gendry over with tired blue eyes. "I trust you're doing this because you're alright with it." He didn't need to say more, they both understood his meaning. Gendry nodded. The Onion Knight patted him on the shoulder awkwardly. "You're a good lad. Don't do anything stupid."

He walked away and Gendry considered his words - did Davos really think he would have gone through the trouble of hosting an elaborate feast if he was going to do something rash?

A group of ladies from various houses entered at once. They each looked remarkably similar, as if they had intentionally styled themselves upon the others. Each wore the bottom half of their long hair down, with the top twisted into a series of intricate buns that framed the back of their heads like a crown. Their gowns were all similar cuts as well - a deep, wide v cut over gauzy fabric the color of honeyed cream that stretched down to a point in the center of the smallest part of their waist. Some women wore dresses the color of a stormy sea or a summer meadow, but most wore floral shades of pink and purple; all of their skirt hems flared out from their ribs to lightly sweep along the floor beneath them.

The ladies whispered to one another and walked to Gendry, each curtsying with varied levels of eye contact and smiles. He nodded politely to each of them. Lordship was filled with strange expectations like these - if he maintained eye contact for too long, or if he didn't make eye contact long enough, rumours would spin that he was sneaking off with the lady in the dark of night. It was exhausting.

Soon the hall buzzed with low voices, laughter, and the songs of the musicians strumming at their lutes and beating their small hand drums. Gendry wandered the floor, struggling with small talk as though he were in his first days of lordship again. His hands felt strangely restless and he decided they would be best put to use around a glass of wine.

Davos met him as he filled his goblet. "I certainly don't envy you tonight," he said gruffly. Gendry felt his brow furrow in confusion until he followed Davos' line of sight. Arya stood laughing, surrounded by three people he was certain must be from west of the Sunset Sea. At the very least, they were not from this continent.

To her left stood a woman a few inches taller than she, with thick black hair plaited in tight rows against her scalp and closed off with some sort of string to fall openly and brush her shoulder any time she moved her head. The bottom of her strands were dyed the color of fresh blood, and glints of metal and sea shells jutted out from random braids. Her garb was simple, a tight vest of some sort of glossy fabric that reminded him of armour worn by the Dothraki, form-fitting linen pants, and simple black boots. She wore a series of small, tight black bracelets of intricate shapes upon her right arm and a black choker that glinted red around her neck. Her skin was darker than that of the other two, and all three were darker than Arya, although she was significantly more tanned than he had ever seen her before.

The second woman stood much taller than the other two. She wore a far more revealing outfit than theirs: a greyish leather top with intricate slashes and burns that looked too tight for her to actually breathe, including a particularly deep slash revealing cleavage; some thin black fabric covered her arms; and a skirt of the same material as her jerkin was slit scandalously high on both sides. Gendry thought he could see the holster and glint of a knife on her thigh when she stepped back to dramatically wave her arms around at something the first woman said. Her feet were clad in some strange, soft suede shoe lined with fur and decorated with swirls of something shiny. She wore her dark hair in a long, thick braid that began tightly at the top of her head and fell to graze her lower back; tiled jewels that looked almost like whitened oil on water clasped the start and end of the plait. Like the other woman, her eyes were lined with charcoal, making their whites stand out like bone against cinders and sand. Heavy white earrings of a material Gendry couldn't recognize fell from her ears to the bottom of her long neck.

The third person was a man. Gendry was alarmed to see he hadn't worn a shirt at all, but instead left his defined torso exposed to the elements. It looked as though he had been painted, or perhaps tattooed, with a series of black and red lines that followed below his collarbone and concaved along his sternum. The hair in the center of his head was much longer than that on either side and was glossed with red, yellow, and brown to stick out almost like drooping feathers. What little clothing he did wear was very strange - brain-tanned soft leathers that hung open at his front and back, presumably with some sort of fabric between them to contain his most private areas, and then separate tubes of the same leather laced up his legs. His shoes were like a simpler and thicker version of those worn by the second woman and he wore many earrings through multiple places on both ears.

None of them caught his gaze the way Arya did. Davos' comments on not envying him suddenly made sense - she looked stunning and yet still so much like herself. Arya wore an outfit the color of day old blood; it was not entirely unlike that she had worn in Winterfell, though significantly tighter and cut in a way that embraced her physique rather than hid it. Her trousers were so tight he wan't entirely sure how she could move in them, though knowing Arya she must not only be able to walk, but to fight comfortably. He had noticed her hair when he saw her the day before, and still found it strange but appealing. Although most of it remained the same brown color he had always known, the very center had been dyed an orangey red, starting perhaps half a hand's length from her forehead. It was much longer than it had been when she stepped upon her ship four years prior, and now reached the back of her shoulder blades even when plaited. The sides were each woven into three tight braids against her scalp to meet up with the rest of her hair in one solid braid that reminded him a little of a soft chain. Unlike the others, she wore no jewelry, only her many blades.

Arya looked up at him and smiled softly. Gendry couldn't tell if he returned the smile, or if his face was already like that when she met his eye. Beside him, Davos toasted his cup and dryly wished him good luck with a slight tilt of the head. Her companions were eying him then and he knew he had to do something - anything other than just standing there like a fool in his own hall.

Gendry approached them and hoped he looked less out of place than he felt. Arya greeted him with a wide smile, then introduced him to her crew.

"This is Gendry, the lord of this castle and land," she said while facing them; her small hand nearly touched his tunic as she gestured towards him. All three of them measured him with their dark eyes.

"Niiotha." The tall woman introduced herself first with a cheerful grin, slamming her hand into her chest with surprising force as she tried to make sure he knew she was showing that she was the person with the name she had just said. He repeated it to her and her eyes laughed, though her mouth mercifully stayed still. "Nee-yoh-tah" she sounded out slowly. He tried it again and looked to the woman beside her.

"Yuisaraq," Her voice was gentle. Gendry knew he would pronounce her name wrong, too, and settled on just nodding politely before turning his attention to the third person.

The man eyed him up and down with distrust before speaking. "Palomai," he said. That was easier. Gendry repeated it back to him and he nodded.

"Well, they think I'm an absolute imbecile." He looked to Arya while rubbing a part of his neck that had been stiff since leaving King's Landing.

"We can understand you," the man, Palomai, informed him in disinterest. Arya tried not to laugh as Gendry felt his eyes round and widen in embarrassment. Niiotha scoffed, then instructed the other two to join her in getting more wine, pulling their arms while walking towards the large oak casks that lined the wall.

"Are they -" he didn't know what he was really asking. '_Going to forever think I'm an idiot?_' was what he really wanted to know, but he wasn't about to ask Arya that. _'Likely to kill me and my men when we offend them?' _was another.

"From the West? Yes." Arya seemed more cheerful than he could ever remember her being. He began to walk towards the large, open stairs that led to a series of small balconies. Maybe fresh air would help him stop feeling a complete fool.

"Must be brave to come with you. Crossing the Sunset Sea is one thing, but following Arya Stark - they must have no sense of self-preservation." Arya eyed him strangely. Some part of him knew what she must see; the last time they were together he was still a barely-literate blacksmith, "self-preservation" was definitely not in his vocabulary in those days.

She followed him up the stairs to an open balcony. The weather was decent that day, the storms had stopped in the afternoon and left a clean, humid mist to rise up from the ground. Gendry breathed in the wet air and looked her over again.

Arya was leaning onto the smooth balcony rail, taking in the open view of the grounds. She looked healthy. A few new scars traced her hands, and he wondered if they were joined by sisters under her sleeves. The scar on her forehead that she had when he had last seen her was still there, though it was much less pronounced now - a strike of lightning in the lines of fresh-cut pine. He hadn't noticed the way her hips now curved out when she stood before him by his forge earlier. Mayhap that was for the best. Davos' words rang out in his head _"Don't do anything stupid."_

"Does everyone in the West dress like this?" He asked her when she noticed his gaze upon her again.

Arya smirked, then looked over her shoulder towards the hall and collected her face into a look of polite interest. "Only the warriors."

Gendry longed to tease her about the fact he couldn't imagine other warriors wearing anything so difficult to move in, but bit his tongue. It wouldn't be proper.

"Makes sense. You look…" he paused, unsure of what would be appropriate but accurate. Suddenly he was back in the smithy of Winterfell, tongue-tied after seeing Arya defend him from the Hound. "strong." It seemed fittingly complimentary without being suggestive.

"Thanks." She did not compliment him in return, and Gendry was glad for it. He joined her in leaning against the bannister, far enough away as to not touch, but still so close that he could feel when she turned to look at him.

"Your wife might not be pleased with me." _Oh_. It would always come back to that.

"Why's that?" It was a strange thing for her to say to him. He had assumed their history would remain unspoken, flashes of memories they'd ignore whenever they forced their way into their minds.

Arya exhaled sharply and pivoted the rest of her body towards him.

"There was one island in my travels where I wouldn't be taken seriously as an unwed woman," Gendry focused on her face as she spoke, unsure of where her words were leading. "I may have… implicated you in certain lies to ensure I was seen as a person and not a marriage prospect." He looked away from her face and found a small grove of birch trees in the courtyard to gather his thoughts.

It seemed almost cruel, given the way she had been so firm about not marrying him back when that was what he had wanted. Gendry worked to keep his hands unclenched and his jaw loose as he thought about it. A kind man might say it was understandable, that he was just glad she did what she needed to - perhaps Gendry was not kind after all.

"Should I be worrying about someone sailing east ready to fight for your hand?" He asked when the damp air rinsed the anger from his tongue. The words were meant as a joke, but his tone was icier than he had intended.

Arya chuckled darkly and shook her head. "No, no that won't be an issue."

"Then what should my wife care?" Suddenly Gendry longed to go back into the hall, to refresh his empty goblet and speak with anyone about anything else.

"My lord," Davos was behind them then and Gendry wondered how much he had heard. "We'll be beginning the feast soon. Many guests would like to thank you in person for the invitation." He nodded, grateful for the interruption, and headed back inside to descend down the stairs and make conversation with anyone he recognized. He did not think about the fact that Arya was still up on the balcony by herself, did not let himself remember finding her alone shooting arrows during another feast years prior.

The din of the many guests was comforting - a goblet clattered on the floor, followed by a roar of laughter by those who had watched the crime. The mood felt lighter than other feasts, as though the strange mixture of patrons and lack of purpose let them enjoy themselves without inhibition. A boy no older than ten and five came up to refill his wine and tell him the guests would be ushered to sit shortly.

"Thank you, Wendyll," Gendry said, "Save a few plates for yourself and your sister." The boy nodded, his amber curls bouncing around his head wildly with the movement before running back to the kitchens.

Gendry walked to the main table and took his seat. The concept of having his own designated place, the main seat at that, had taken a while to become normal; he no longer had to convince himself that he deserved it every time he sat. Davos and Marya Seaworth sat beside him, joined by their castellan, Pylon, and a few local lords.

Arya had returned to the main floor and was speaking to the tall woman again. They sat at a small table with the middle son of house Wylde, who seemed speechlessly smitten with them both. Gendry sent someone to fetch them and the other two Westerners and bring them to the main table.

"We were fine as we were," Arya said as she approached.

"This feast is to welcome your return, we can't have the guest of honor missing." Davos was cheerful.

"Ser Davos! It is so good to see you." Gendry wondered why she had not said so when Davos had found them up on the balcony. "Is this your wife?"

"Marya, Pincess Arya. Easy to remember since they rhyme." The kind, plump woman wore her standard motherly smile. Gendry tried not to laugh at the title she bestowed upon Arya, and stifled it with a swallow of wine instead. He did not dare look at her to see if she noticed.

Arya sat two seats to Gendry's left, intentionally leaving the one beside him open. The pour of wine she bestowed upon her cup was heavy-handed and deliberate.

Soon the first of the three courses arrived. Ribs of venison stewed in sour wine, tomatoes, and garlic sprinkled with an herb Gendry couldn't quite identify. Small, roasted potatoes, pearl onions, and carrots soaked up the juices.

"Are we not waiting for Lady Baratheon?" Arya asked when she saw the others begin their meals. "Is she not well?"

Davos choked on the wine he was sipping and Gendry felt quite flushed.

"There is no Lady Baratheon," Marya explained softly, "At least not yet."

Davos quickly intervened. "What my lady wife means is that we are in the final stages of marriage negotiation with a Dornish house. We anticipate a wedding within the year."

Arya made a noise of understanding. Gendry could feel her eyes on him; he would not turn to see if they were congratulatory or distrusting.

"Which Dornish house?" She asked. Her voice sounded neutral in its inquiry.

"Lady Lucynda of House Dayne." He surprised himself with how proudly he answered. Arya found something interesting in her wine as he spoke, and Gendry was sure she was thinking of House Stark's tangled history with the Dornish family.

"Although I can't recall hearing of Lady Lucynda specifically, I know House Dayne to be noble and fair. It is said they have the blood of Queen Nymeria flowing through their veins."

"Aye," Davos answered when Gendry's lips did not move, "and Lady Lucynda uses that blood well. Her mind is as sharp as her face is beautiful, and she knows her way around a blade." He finally turned his gaze to Arya, who smiled at the last statement more than the rest.

"It sounds like a fitting match," she said approvingly as she turned her attention to her plate.

Conversation passed lightly with the first course; Arya answered every measure of questions thrown at her regarding her travels. Davos wanted to know about the geography and nautical specifics - how far had she sailed? Were the islands more than a few days apart from one another? Which stars had she used to navigate? His wife asked about the people, wondering everything from their languages to festivities to garb.

The second course interrupted an unnecessarily lengthy description of the plant life of the mainlands. Partridge simmered in a cream broth laden with cheese and Dornish peppers sat upon a bed of ribbon-like noodles; servers spooned the thick sauce upon the browned fowl. A light, crusty bread was served along with the meal to soak up any sauces.

"Your kitchen staff are most impressive," Arya stated dreamily before savoring another bite of the meal.

"You're just mad for cheese," Palomai chided while rolling his eyes. "But the food is quite good," he added when Niiotha jutted an elbow into his ribs.

"Does your king expect you to return to the West?" Pylon asked, leaning across the table to address the foreigners.

All three answered differently at once. "It matters not." "I do not have a king." "Didn't ask."

"You do not have a king?" Lord Penrose asked. Niiotha shook her head. "A queen then?"

"No."

"Who ensures peace in your lands? Who makes decisions?" Niiotha explained her people's political system - representatives from each clan, whatever that meant, were chosen by elder women and had to make decisions with their people in mind. Each meeting, which she insisted could last weeks, had to end in full consensus.

"And if a lord decides poorly, does he lose his title and lands?" Lord Estermont asked.

"We don't give them anything extra for serving - no title, no land. And he or she," she emphasized the fact that women could do the same, "would simply be replaced by another." Gendry found the system fascinating, though he was grateful not to be involved in it. If annual council meetings to vote on matters of tax rates seemed maddening, he couldn't imagine how awful it would be to need to come to a full consensus.

"Is that true for all of you?"

"I have king," Yuisaraq stated. She was less boisterous than Niiotha and less rude than Palomai; Gendry decided he liked her best. "I not think he expect my return."

"Will you stay here then, the three of you? In Westeros?"

Palomai shrugged. "It's possible." He seemed not to care.

Yuisaraq said nothing, turning her efforts to cutting the last of the partridge on her plate.

"I follow Arya," Niiotha said firmly. "If Arya stays in Westeros, so do I." Gendry was glad to hear her dedication; Arya deserved a friend so loyal.

"And will you stay in Westeros, Princess Arya?" Marya asked her warmly.

Arya cringed at the title again. "I haven't yet decided. I will travel to Winterfell soon to see my sister, and then to the Citadel. I suppose I'll figure it out from there."

"If I may be so bold, my lady, might I ask why you came to Storm's End before going to Winterfell?" _A damn good question,_ Gendry thought as Davos asked it.

"Geography." Her answer was simple, as if it was quite obvious to everyone else.

"But would it not have made more sense to dock in Seagard or Flint's Finger and then ride north?"

"That would have been most sensible had I not crew members to return to King's Landing and a brother to visit with."

"You were in King's Landing?" He wondered if they had nearly crossed paths. She faced him and looked almost defensive.

"Yes. I arrived late last week."

"Was that when you saw Lord Gendry? He did not mention it to us." Gendry felt Davos staring at him with accusation as Pylon asked the question innocently.

"I didn't see him in my time there. Were you there recently?" He turned back to her rather than face Davos' growing distrust.

"Bran held the annual grand council meeting. We left the capital ten days ago." Arya's grey eyes looked at him like he had asked her a riddle.

"My ship must have docked just as you left."

A pregnant pause took over the table as everyone created small stories in their minds. They were brought to by the third course - fish cakes made of fat, sweet chunks of trout and crab served along button mushrooms basted in butter and shallots.

The table broke into smaller sub-groups with the final course. The lords of the Stormlands, save for Gendry, spoke to one another about a massive import of mead that Lord Grandison had set to arrive in a few weeks. Davos and Marya asked the travelers of their homes. Yuisaraq told them she came from an island of white sand and turquoise seas; she regaled them with tales of jungles and serene sparkling ocean coves. Gendry noticed that the choker she wore had a center of the same type of metal that made up Arya's new weapon. Palomai spoke more than Gendry expected, explaining that he hailed from a rocky, coastal land of trees and swamps. Their climate was not dissimilar to the Stormlands, though snow was frequent during their cold seasons. Niiotha was from a place further inland, a village deep in a forest nestled between mountains, rivers, and lakes.

Soon many guests made their way out of the hall although desserts were only just being served. Gendry took a honeyed almond cake and allowed himself to glance at Arya again. Even with the empty chair between them, she seemed somehow both very far and entirely too close. She met his eyes with a small, insincere smile, then excused herself to get more wine. He did not bother telling her that the serving staff would return with another pitcher shortly.

He watched as she wandered over to the large barrels along the far wall and filled her goblet. The young Wylde lord approached her and spoke quite closely. Gendry blinked and shook his head to clear his mind.

"When do you return to the capital for small council?" He asked Davos. He already knew the answer was some time within the next week, but it was a welcome distraction.

"Five days' time." Davos responded.

Gendry glanced again at Arya - she was directly in his line of sight if he just tilted his head slightly to the left - and felt the discomfort grow at the sight of Lord Wylde reaching out to physically touch the curved blade Arya wore on her thigh.  
Davos followed his gaze and cleared his throat. "Perhaps you ought to give our guests a tour of the castle." What Gendry would do without the man he'd never know.

Yuisaraq declined and explained that she was still quite tired; she would return to her chambers for the night. Palomai and Niiotha followed him, speaking to each other harshly in a language that was unlike any he had ever heard. The loud woman interrupted Arya's conversation and led her to them to be brought down the hall - it was impossible miss that she had disrespected Lord Wylde, but she clearly did not care. Maybe Gendry liked her best, after all.

Gendry fumbled through the beginnings of the tour, showing them up the largest tower first, where they silently viewed the ocean crashing against the stones below.

He took them then to a store room filled with Baratheon banners, where he could practically feel Palomai's boredom radiating from him like heat from coals. Arya kindly asked him what tales were woven into the tapestries and he detailed the only one he knew. This tour was a disaster.

As they rounded a corner to another wing of the castle, Niiotha interrupted them. "Do you have -" she didn't know the word for whatever it was she needed, and looked to Arya in a panic before saying something that was not in the Common Tongue. Arya considered it for a moment.

"A garderobe?" She asked him.

Gendry nodded and started walking them to the outer limits that held a large privy. He gestured to it awkwardly and she entered, then immediately poked her head out of the door again.

"I… The delicacies of the east are heavy on my stomach. Don't wait for me." Palomai burst into laughter and they continued their walk back to the East Wing.

They hadn't even arrived to the guest room they were walking towards when the other man stopped him. "I think I need to check on Yuisaraq," he said strangely before quickly turning around and leaving them.

"They can be odd," Arya admitted with a slight smile.

The two of them walked down the hall, an appropriate distance between them, until Gendry reached the room he had wanted to show their group when Davos first suggested the tour. Their eyes met slowly as he unlocked the door. Gendry tried to dampen the warm feeling that stirred deep inside him when she looked at him in that way.

The dark door opened to a massive room lined with every variety of weapons imaginable. Arya stepped in slowly and turned her head upwards in awe.

"You made all these?" She asked.

He nodded. "Between all the lordly bullshit and the ones we export." Her small hand reached out and traced the head of a battle axe on the wall nearest her.

"Is it my imagination, or are these smaller than standard?"

"They're meant to be." He walked over to a large shelf filled with sharp steel. "These ones are the normal size, the rest are better suited for… someone less large." Arya's eyes flew to his as she took in his words. "You're welcome to take whatever you'd like. Your crew can, too."

She stepped away from the axe and inspected a weapon closer to him. "Why?"

"I just figured -" He needed to decide if he would rather sound pathetic or cold. "I knew if you ever came back, you'd probably want a weapon or two." Her brow arched as she looked at the dozens of options hanging around them. "Besides, smaller weapons are easier," that wasn't true, "so some of these were prototypes for things my men requested." Her eyes glinted - she knew he was lying.

"And if I didn't come back at all?"

"Then any daughters I might have would choose from the best weapons in the Six Kingdoms." That part was true.

"You would let your girls fight?" Gendry couldn't believe Arya would even need to ask him that.

"The best fighter I've ever known is a woman - why shouldn't my daughters be like her?" He looked away, feigning interest in a pair of short swords he had nearly forgotten about.

"You've never even seen me fight."

"Who said I was talking about you? I was referring to Ser Brienne." He made his voice purposefully haughty and Arya laughed. Gendry let himself join her.

They stood there in warm silence, each occasionally looking at the other, then breaking off to look anywhere else. Arya's eye caught something in the corner and she stepped to it quickly. It was too high for her to reach, so Gendry stretched above them and removed the sword with ease.

"And this - was it your soldiers or your unborn children who you thought would need a wolf on their blade?" That sword had been difficult to make. It was approximately the same length as Needle, but much wider, and had decorative mountains etched upon its center. The hilt had been the most difficult part - two direwolves leaping in opposite directions, their tails connected in a circle. The pommel was a howling wolf's head that he had based upon the Stark sigil. He admired his own work for a moment before handing it to Arya. Their fingers brushed as she took it from him and he cursed himself for the fluttering feeling rising up through his chest.

Arya weighed the weapon in her palm and tested it with a slash through the air. She smiled and bent her head to look more closely at the wolves adorning the sword. "It's beautiful," she said as she handed it back to him. He grasped the haft wrapping his hand over hers to do so. Neither of them let go.

Arya's face looked uneasy, like she couldn't decide if she should shout with anger or throw herself upon him. Gendry wasn't sure which would be worse. Their eyes remained locked for a few breaths until she opened her mouth to speak.

"Why did you let me think you were married?" He hung the sword back upon the wall to give himself time to think before responding.

_Because I didn't want you to think I was sitting here pining over you while you sailed the world,_ he wanted to say. And he truly hadn't been - he had gone whole days without thinking of her, he had been with other women, he had negotiated a damn betrothal. "You heard Davos. I might as well be," he said instead. Arya swallowed and smiled with something that looked too close to pity before looking back at wolves leaping from the sword.

Gendry studied her face, comparing every part to how his mind had remembered her. Her eyes were exactly as they had been in his dreams, expressive and as grey as the steel that surrounded them, though now they were graced by light lines when she smiled or furrowed her brow. Her nose remained the same, still miraculously unbroken despite her love of a fight, and her right cheek still rose nearly imperceptibly higher than her left. Her mouth was the same, but he noticed he had forgotten about the scar at the base of her lower lip. That scar had been there long before he met her, doubtlessly acquired as a result of some trouble she stirred up in the grounds of the North as a child. Gendry had noticed it glint in the fire light one night while she sat beside him on the kingsroad; he had realized it was smooth and unable to be felt through lips the first time they kissed. Somehow his mind had erased it from her memory, scrubbed it clean from the face that frequented too many dreams. It felt almost like a betrayal. His eyes lingered upon it now; he needed to be sure it didn't leave his mind and did his best to ignore the growing part of him that longed to claim it with his own mouth.

The door to the storeroom scraped open and he stepped away from her to see who had entered. Maester Forreal.

"My lord, I'm sorry to interrupt. There is urgent news from the capital. The lords wait for you in your solar."

Gendry looked to Arya. She looked as though she had been just as transfixed as he before the disruption - a soft pink crept from her cheeks and her breathing was deep. She turned to the maester and then twisted her neck to view Gendry once more.

"Thank you for the feast, Lord Gendry. I hope to see you again before I depart for Winterfell."


	3. Chapter 3 - Storm's End II

_Chapter 3 - Storm's End II_

**Arya**

Angry sea air whipped into Arya's face as if it hoped to drive her back with the same ferocity it used to smash the sea upon nearby rocks. She thought briefly of the story of Elenei, that daughter of the sea and the wind who fell for the first Storm King and sacrificed all to keep him safe; supposedly her husband had worked with Bran the Builder to create Storm's End. Arya's mother had told her and Sansa the tale once - her sister sighed at the idea of Elenei giving up her immortality for her husband, while Arya found the whole thing ridiculous. Why waste the power of wind and sea on a man? As disappointing as the story seemed, she wondered if the atavistic goddess had found a way to live on through the storms that battered the castle she had once called home. Perhaps she was protecting her descendants through the crashing waves and fierce winds.

Arya was running with her Western crew, a practice insisted by Palomai that the rest had no choice but to agree with. She enjoyed running more than the other two women did - a fact Niiotha rudely insisted was because she had less to bind than they did - and never complained when Palomai informed them it was time to train their endurance. All four of them had fallen out of practice with their long journey at sea and their legs struggled to keep pace. Today's run was especially unpleasant due to the weather. The wind and rain pushed them back as they ran, somehow equally as strong from both the north and the south. They had been out for over an hour, short by Palomais standards but still to long for the rest. He finally slowed to a walk when the path to the castle became visible upon the stoney beach.

Niiotha flung herself upon the ground and groaned dramatically. "When are we going to the North?" Her voice rang out in a childish whine.

"Soon. Possibly as early as tonight."

"Do not we need our ship first?" Yuisaraq asked. Arya was disappointed to realize she hadn't included the two day ride back to Mistwood in her calculations.

"I don't think she's been thinking about leaving enough to remember that. Her head has been stuck in that bed since we got here." Palomai pointed his lips to the castle. Arya made a face but didn't bother disagreeing - he had been increasingly irritating since their third week at sea, when he realized his lover had not followed him and he was indeed stuck sailing to another continent. It wasn't worth the breath it would take to tell him he was wrong. "I hope it was good. I don't think anyone could have sat there and watched you two pretend you weren't picturing him inside you any more than we had to last night -"

"I was not." That was far enough to argue. "Besides, we didn't do anything. We're past all that." Maybe if she said it aloud her mind would finally think it true.

"What?" Niiotha shouted from the ground, "You're telling me I pretended my body was failing for you not to spend the night in his bed?"

"The ship?" Yuisaraq had no patience for the other two's antics. Arya felt a twang of guilt for letting them argue about such things so soon after Yuisaraq had lost her husband.

"Let her fuck her little king, then we can worry about the ship."

"He's a lord, not a king," She corrected Palomai, "and I'd hardly call him little." Niiotha cracked into laughter, cackling like a madwoman as she pounded her fist into the sea-smoothed rocks below her.

Arya chewed her lip. She hadn't meant it like that, but she respected herself too much to pretend she hadn't been thinking about it recently. She hadn't even considered the possibility that he might not marry while she was away. It was still strange to her that Gendry had let her believe he had a wife, but she supposed she would understand eventually - everything made better sense with time. Last night he had alternated like the weather in a Northern Spring - eying her as if she stood bare before him up on the balcony one moment, avoiding her gaze entirely and ringing his hands like a child the next, then whatever had happened in the storeroom before the maester had entered. If it weren't for the interruption, she was certain they would have wound up naked underneath one of the shelves.

She was pulled from her recollection by the thuds of rapidly approaching horses.

"Princess Arya!" A soldier shouted. That damned title. Maybe she could get Bran to issue a decree that it was not to be used. "Is everything alright? There were reports that you were fleeing something." Palomai laughed as though the soldier had told his best joke.

"We're fine. Thank you." She didn't feel like explaining the concept of running aimlessly for better fighting stamina.  
"Is she alright?" The soldier asked, pointing his well-armored arm towards Niiotha, who was now lying face down on the rocks. The woman waved her hand in the air awkwardly and assured him she was fine before he rode back to the castle.

"How can anywhere be so stupid?" It was the best grammar Yuisaraq had managed since learning the Common Tongue, and perhaps her most valid question.

They walked back to the castle and returned to their quarters to bathe before breaking their fast.

The great hall was transformed from the night before - gone were the massive boisterous Baratheon banners and the large oak casks filled with enough wine to leave half the hall slumped at their seats. In their place hung one faded banner and a respectable cluster of large, rectangular tables covered in cloth the shade of fresh butter.

Arya was mildly relieved to see Gendry call them up to his lord's table again - she hadn't been sure if he would want to see her less or more after the strange way they had parted the night before. The serving girl placed her meal in front of the seat directly beside him.

"Lord Baratheon," she greeted him. His brows rose at her use of his full title as though he had forgotten she was aware of it. "That is what I'm supposed to call you now, is it not?"

He waited for her to sit before responding.

"I normally request that people use my given name, but I afraid I'm going to need to insist that you call me that instead." The air between them was lighter than it had been. She ignored the whispers and stares of the other lords and ladies at the table and smiled at his jest, enjoying the fact his blue eyes had not yet left hers.

"I heard you gave my guards cause for concern this morning," Gendry said, extending his gaze to Yuisaraq, Niiotha, and Palomai when Davos lightly cleared his throat.

"Perhaps your guards should be concerned less easily," Arya responded with a shrug. It was surprisingly difficult to keep her mouth from pulling upwards.

"Is it true you ran all along the beach?" Asked a lady in a violet dress, a matching ribbon twisted though the cinnamon curls piled high atop her head.

"Yes, it's quite common in their land."

She looked away from the woman and hungrily devoured her breakfast - a pear sliced thin over a bowl of ground oats soaked in milk, honey, and almonds.

"Do you not run?" Niiotha asked the lady. She hated running, but warriors and hunters alike in her village ran from childhood and Arya imagined it must be surprising for her to realize that practice didn't exist in Westeros.

"If you can't run you, can't fight," Palomai stated simply when the woman explained that she had never heard of such a thing.

The older of the two lords from House Wylde, a man not yet forty with thinning golden hair and a pointy beard, spoke to Gendry regarding the number of horses in his stable and whether he planned to breed any. Arya was impressed with the way he was able to hide his disinterest with the topic, but even more so with the fact he knew his castle well enough to answer; most lords would have deferred to their castellan for something so specific. He didn't just look and sound like a proper lord, she realized, he truly was one.

Most of the table had already finished their meals before the four descended from their chambers earlier. They dried up from the hall like water after a storm until Gendry, Davos, Marya, Arya, and her crew remained the last shallow pools caught between the cracks.

"Lady Stark," Davos began, "have you plans for the day?"

She nodded and pretended she didn't hate small talk. "We'd like to deliver our gifts for the Stormlands. After that we shall plan for the journey back to Winterfell. Our ship is two days south, so we'll need to leave on horseback by first light tomorrow." She felt Gendry turn to face her, but remained looking at Davos.

The Onion Knight nodded and stroked his beard for a moment. "Kind of you to bring gifts for the region," his wife said with a smile.

"One doesn't travel to unknown lands and come back empty handed."

.

.

A few hours after leaving the hall, they were called to a cabinet to deliver the gifts they had brought east. The goods were confined to two large chests filled so heavy it took two people to carry each of the great things down the stairs to the meeting room. The wooden side banged against the patalpeq she wore against her thigh, causing the metal to dig into her skin through her thin leather trousers.

When they arrived at the room the lords were alarmed that they had carried the goods themselves. A stout man with orange curls whom Gendry called Pylon reprimanded them in a way that made Arya miss her mother. "We do have serving staff!" He chirped. Gendry just laughed.

She opened the first case, this one filled with smaller goods. It would be easier to allow the others to describe the things from their lands, and so she deferred to them.

"Wahatakaron," Niiotha said as she pulled out two glass bottles of a brown shimmering liquid. "It comes from a tree and is the best thing you'll ever taste."

"A tree? Is it alcoholic?" Asked a lord whose name Arya had forgotten.

"No. It's too thick to drink. You could add it to shit ale if you'd like, I suppose." The lords blanched at her language.

"Zataqussuck _is_ alcoholic," Palomai said as he took out a clay container. "We smash berries and water, then add honey and let it ferment all summer." It was a deceptively strong concotion, the alcohol hidden by the sweetness, and had caused Arya to wake up on multiple occasions with only a foggy memory of what she had done the night before.

"Is it still safe to drink after its long journey?" Davos asked reasonably.

"It's even better now." Niiotha's face lit up as though she was considering taking the flask for herself rather than letting the lords have it.

Yuisaraq showed them weapons, coins, and jewelry from her home island. Arya couldn't help but think the lords looked a bit like fish as they gaped at the shiny items. They continued emptying the first case, handing items large and small off to be handled and inspected before placing them back from whence they came.

Each of the three had brought back their favorite dried or smoked foods - jars of salted fish, dried meats, and preserved fruits that they hoped the lords would share at their next feast.

"These are for your healers," Niiotha said more seriously than any but their crew had heard her speak before. She held a large bag filled with smaller leather sacks of herbs and roots. "I will explain their uses to them."

"Her grandmother was the healer for her entire village," Arya explained.

"She still is, unless you know some terrible news from across the ocean that I do not." She shook her head and noticed that Niiotha did not put the bag back in the chest; medicine may truly be the only thing the woman took seriously

They moved onto the second trunk. This one was significantly heavier but took much less time to empty. The bulk of the weight came from three hen-sized, red balls of metal; Arya removed one to show them. It was hefty enough that she needed to use the strength of her legs to help her pick it up, even with both hands supporting its weight.

"You already know what this is," she said to Gendry. "They cast metal into spheres rather than ingots. I'm not sure what this type is called, but I'm fairly certain it doesn't exist this side of the Sunset Sea."

"We say caonekto," Yuisaraq said softly. "It make our mountains. The gods stop us take too much."

"I'll keep that in mind," Gendry said to her kindly as he took the ball from Arya's hands into one of his own. He rolled it between both palms and flicked it to feel the density. Arya tried not to think about how he moved it as if it were made of glass rather than heavy ore.

Palomai removed a series of furs that the metal had sat upon and offered them to the lords. Most of the animals did not exist in Westeros, and those that did were much softer and larger in the West. Gendry caught her eye sadly as he saw the fur of a wolf among them. She nodded and pressed her lips into a line then looked away; it wasn't for her to disagree with, but she hated seeing it too.

The final items were fabrics, most of which Yuisaraq explained came from plants, and another made from the woven melted feathers of massive birds. The lords passed them around and pressed them to their faces, not realizing how unflattering the bright colors were against their pale, sallow skin.

Gendry thanked them twice, once for the Stomlands and once for himself, and the many lords echoed him. The highborn of the Stormlands soon found flimsy excuses to leave once they had seen the exotic treasures of the West. Each filtered out with an insincere reason - a wife whom they should return to, a son to check on, a raven to send. Yuisaraq announced that she was going down to the sea for a bit and Niiotha and Palomai joined her. Arya hoped they wouldn't stay with her long; she deserved some peace and quiet and those two were anything but. Soon it was just Pylon, Davos, Gendry, and Arya, each admiring different things within the chests. Davos ran a bracelet made of quills under the fingers of his intact hand to feel the pattern; Pylon felt the smooth, warm furs of a strange water-dwelling creature with massive teeth that managed to chew down entire forests; Gendry inspected the metal, still rolling it around in his hands as though it were weightless; Arya thumbed a sharp blade from a pair of throwing knives from Yuisaraq's home.

"I'd best go pack up so Marya and I can get home before I head back to the capital," Davos said as he gently placed the bracelet back into the chest. "I'll come back here once I'm set to leave." Gendry nodded and watched as the older man left the room.

"You seem different," he said to Arya after a few minutes had passed. If he noticed his advisor was still among them, he did not care.

"Different?" She turned to arch a brow in bemusement, gently tossing the small knife from hand to hand.

"More…" he couldn't think of the word. She wondered if he was worried about offending her. "Less… detached."

"Hmm." It was ironic, the idea that leaving everything and everyone had somehow made her more connected to them. And yet, she knew it was accurate. She had been a broken shell of a person when her ship left the docks of King's Landing; now, whether through friendship, solitude, adventure, or something else entirely, she had returned feeling more complete. Perhaps "less detached" was a decent description after all. She sheathed the knife and placed it back with its mate in the chest.

Arya stole a glance at Gendry again and was surprised to see he was already watching her.

"There isn't another feast tonight, but you and your friends could dine in my solar if you're interested. I'll have to leave you to finish preparing for tomorrow's meetings after we eat, but it would be good to hear more about your adventures in your final time here." She agreed.

A few minutes went by and Arya continued to inspect the goods she had given them. Pylon coughed after a while, looking the two of them over as though he wasn't quite sure what to say or do.

"Lord Gendry, it would be best if you could get us those sums by the morn so we might follow up with the petitioners."

"Of course. I'll try my hand at them tonight and return them to you by the time we meet in the morning."

"Excellent, my lord." His watery green eyes darted to Arya before nodding the tiniest of bows and walking past them to exit through the far door.

"You let him call you a lord." Arya wasn't sure why she was smiling as she spoke, but felt no desire to stop it. They were alone again.

Gendry shrugged. "I spent the first year wasting half of every meeting correcting them. Isn't always worth it." He returned his attention to the metal, scooping up a second sphere with his other hand to weigh them for difference. Arya tried to keep her face steady as she watched his muscles strain the fine fabric of his tunic.

The shirt itself was quite nice - some shiny, soft material the shade of river stones lit by twilight. She didn't realize she had reached out to touch the fabric until he stopped moving.

"This is quite lordly, you know," she said, not meaning for her voice to come out so low.

Gendry breathed out a sound that seemed to mix humour and confusion. "The King gave this to me at our last council meeting." That's strange. Why was Bran gifting clothing to the lords paramount? Did he do this for everyone, or to Gendrry in particular as gratitude for saving his life?

"It's my favourite colour," Arya thought aloud. She grazed the fabric of the side of the neckline between her fingers, then smoothed a hand over his broad shoulder. He did not move away, so she let her hand rest there. Mayhap it was the warm mead Niiotha had shared with her while they prepared the chests, or even just the remnants of the long run they had toiled though that morning, but Arya felt daring. She shifted her weight forward; they were less than two hand-lengths apart now. His breath was warm on her hair, its rhythm strangely hypnotizing. Arya wasn't sure what she was trying to do, but she didn't particularly wish to stop.

Her right hand palmed Needle in its cool leather sheath as she closed her eyes for a moment and focused on breathing in and out. It was strange how easily she could forget an action so basic when she felt this way.

Gendry still hadn't moved, instead remaining as still as the walls around them save for the rise and fall of his chest. Arya's hand moved of its own volition, tracing inward with her fingertips slowly from his right shoulder to where the shirt's opening split, then pressing her palm flat against the muscles casing his sternum. She felt his breath catch beneath her touch and slowly tilted her head up. He stared down at her from eyes stormy with conflict.

Arya's mind had already erased any complications of her own. Without thinking, she tipped forward on her toes and brought her mouth to his.

For just an instant he stayed completely still against her lips. Just when she went to pull away, his hand rose to her face to keep her there as he kissed her back softly. She moved her hand off of Needle and to his side, pulling him closer to her. Gendry's other arm wrapped around her waist and she glid her right hand up his strong torso around his neck.

Their kisses were slow and soft, nothing like she would have imagined had she been asked how a reunion of their lips might go after four years. Neither broke away other than to shift in angle or press the other more closely to them. She felt his hand move from her waist up to touch the braid hanging down her upper back, where his large fingers absently played with the free tresses below the string that kept the whole thing from unraveling. Inspired, Arya let her own hand comb through his thick, black hair. He hadn't had enough hair to touch the last time they kissed, now it was long enough to wrap around her fingers multiple times.

Gendry chuckled at the mirrored motion and she did too. A feeling of pure happiness bubbled up from her heart like a simmering stew in the dead of winter - this was real and it was right. She dropped her hand to his face, relishing in the way it fit perfectly beneath his high cheekbone.

Someone coughed behind her.

Gendry stepped back; his hand slowly slid from her cheek to her neck, remaining on her upper back as she turned to see a very disappointed-looking Ser Davos. How had they not heard the door open? Gendry's hand left her body finally and she felt a rush of cold in its absence.

Arya tried to at least greet the knight as protocol demanded, but found her voice could not make a sound. She inhaled sharply instead and looked at the older man, then back at Gendry before nodding at both and leaving the room as quickly as she could.

.

.

.

**Davos**

The warm afternoon sun spilled in through the tall windows of one of Storm's End's many cabinets. Davos Seaworth let his eyes focus on the cast iron muntins crossing their way up the closest pane of glass as he gathered his thoughts. He had just seen the lord paramount he was supposed to be advising do something both unacceptable and entirely inevitable.

Davos worried this would happen the moment he learned the youngest Stark sister had arrived in the Stormlands; he knew the cause was lost as soon as he saw his young lord look her over at the feast. Eyes so lovestruck and a history like they had - politics and proprieties stood no chance. Still, Gendry had become a son of sorts, and Davos could not let a son act so recklessly.

He looked at the young lord now. Gendry appeared thoroughly embarrassed - a flush had set upon the tops of his ears and his lips were pursed so tightly they almost seemed to be being punished for finding their way upon Lady Stark's. His eyes, the same shade of blue of all those who had ruled these lands before him, were downcast and unsteady. _At least he knows it was wrong_, Davos defended against criticisms he had not yet thought. The girl was set to return to her homelands of the North soon enough, mayhap he could afford to be gentle with the lad.

"Care to join me on my way to the stables?" Gendry did not respond or nod, but silently moved behind Davos to follow him. They walked in silence, so Davos took a longer path to try to facilitate conversation. He ended up routing them to the outdoor forge the lord had requested be custom built - perhaps his words would come more easily where he was most comfortable.

"We need to talk about this," Davos said quietly when they'd reached the smithy. He pulled up a cold metal bench and wiped it of the rainwater that had not yet been dried by the afternoon sun. Gendry did not sit, but walked over to trace the anvil lightly with his hands.

"Nothing to talk about."

Davos met his eye and refused to look away.

"I don't know how it happened. It doesn't really matter, it's not like anything will come of it." For a moment, he reminded Davos of the bemoaned way he had divulged the story of his rushed proposal back in Winterfell.

"It _does_ matter."

"Why?" His tone was angry, but that didn't bother Davos.

"What if it wasn't me who walked in? What if it was another lord? Or worse yet, some serving girl? How long do you think it would take for word to spread around the castle? Or the region? Or to Dorne?" Gendry looked to him for a moment, then flickered his eyes away and swallowed.

"But it wasn't." Maybe he ought to be harsh, after all.

"It could've been. You didn't lock the door, you didn't e'en go somewhere private. You're a lord now, you need to remember that. You can't just sneak away together during a feast the second you find her or flirt with her about your title for all to see."

"I didn't flirt with her." Davos silenced his defensiveness with a simple, knowing look.

"How do you see this playing out? Do you think she's just going to settle down here and live some happy life as your wife?" It worried him that Gendry looked pained at the question - even after all this time, his feelings fo her remained. "You have to think about the Stormlands now," he continued when he received no response, "You aren't just a smith the night before a battle anymore or even a new lord trying to keep her from leaving." Gendry's eyes shot up to him; Davos had never told him he knew about those nights in King's Landing before she sailed west. "You're a lord paramount. Act like one."

Gendry chuckled darkly and looked at him full of confrontation. "And what does a lord paramount act like?" Davos knew they were both thinking of the same moment - when they had been just two of six people in the dragon pit who didn't laugh at the concept of small folk having a say. It had been a rough introduction to politics for the new lord. "Like Robin Arryn, throwing fits and executing servants for anything that doesn't go his way? Like Edmure Tully, publicly congratulating himself for negotiating a disaster of a trade plan that lasted two weeks? Like the Prince of Dorne, bedding anyone who looks his way?"

"It means you put your people's needs before your desires!" Davos had never taken this tone or volume with the boy before. Others might have stripped him of title and lands for yelling at their lord paramount, but Gendry still didn't seem to register the difference in their status. "It means you don't just waste your money on peasant weddings and employing every petitioner who seems sad."

"And why shouldn't I?"

"The lords are beginning to talk. If they think you're more loyal to your peasants than to your bannermen, you're likely to find yourself with no lands at all."

"It's _their_ money!" He exclaimed, slamming his hand onto the anvil as he said it.

"If you really think that's how taxes work -"

"That's exactly how taxes work. My people labor and give the tax collector the coins they earn so I can represent them, not just so I can have feasts and fine garb or make the other lords feel important. If I want to give them some of those funds back and pay for a wedding or find them work it's been more than earned." Gendry had a good heart, but he was short sighted.

"They give the tax collector their coin so you can protect 'em and keep 'em safe and full. How will you ensure they have enough to eat with the winter crop failing and the news we got yesterday 'bout the Reach? How will you keep 'em safe when the Dornish learn you've been sneaking off with the sister of the King, the queen of the only independent kingdom on the continent, and the queenslayer?"

"You really think I don't know all that? It was one kiss, Davos."

"Didn't look like that to me." _It looked like love._ If things were different, if the six kingdoms weren't clutching at the strings of reconciliation, he would have encouraged the young man to follow his heart. But that was not their reality. "How much have your advisors told you about the history of your house?" He asked more gently, hoping it might diffuse their frustrations.

"A fair amount - not much I can retell without looking at the tapestries though. And I'm hopeless when it comes to remembering years or who sired who." _Whom_, Davos corrected silently.

"What have they said of the founder of your house?"

"Orys Baratheon - another bastard." He rolled his eyes as though the similarities were repeated to him often. "The Targaryens claimed the Stormlands so Orys killed the last Storm King. He wed his daughter after her people stripped her and dragged her in chains through the mud to his camps." The gist of it was right, Davos supposed, though most in the region thought of him more generously.

In truth there were parts of Orys' story that were less than ideal for his message - the man had become twisted by revenge after having his hand cut off, and his hatred of Dorne seemed especially problematic given the fact Davos was reminding Gendry of his role in uniting the two kingdoms. He decided it was best to just stick to the kinder parts.

"Orys was a warrior, aye, but his heart was gentle. Most men would have taken Argella still in her chains for all to see. Her house rejected the match - said he dishonored her. She called for his death more than once even before he slew her father. Yet, when she was brought to him bloodied and naked, he didn't think her a prize. He covered her in his cloak and had her drink from his wine; he did not strike her or rape her, he even took her house's words and sigil at her request. Bein' born a bastard isn't all you and Orys have in common. He was fierce when he needed to be, but soft of heart. His blood, and that of his stubborn Storm Queen, runs through your veins."

Gendry looked down at the anvil and considered the tale, though he did not speak.

"This alliance with the Dornish is important," he tried again, his voice calmer, "It may not have been written in the Neutrality Agreement, but it will ensure good relations for generations."

"I know."

"There are worse things than marrying a beautiful, wealthy woman to keep peace."

Gendry's lips twitched up into a sad smile of forfeit and Davos found himself wishing things could be different.

"Marya wanted to thank you herself for hosting us, but mayhap it's best to let ya work here for a bit."

He nodded. "She always has a place here. You both do." Davos smiled at the words - conversations like this were not easy, but he would be a poor advisor if he fled from them.

"You're doing a good job, lad. Just need'a think a little more like a lord and a little less like a smith." They embraced stiffly and Davos clutched him a little closer with a pat against his back. If more men were like Gendry, the world would be a much better place.


	4. Chapter 4 - Storm's End III

_Chapter IV: Storm's End III_

**Gendry**

The solar connected to Gendry's bed chamber was usually a mess of scrolls and half-made metalwork; today it looked as though it had never been touched. A heavy, round table made of oak stained the colour of brandy stood in the center, a far cry from where it was normally wedged against the stone wall to be covered in a mess of parchment and empty inkpots. Gendry pulled up a mustard-cushioned chair and propped his elbows to take his weight as he waited for his guests to arrive. Sighing, he rapped his knuckles on the table in a rhythm whose origin he couldn't quite remember. His left index finger found a cave within the smooth wood where a knot had once lived and felt around it; the rough irregularity calmed him slightly.

This was a terrible idea. He had considered claiming he wasn't feeling well or rescinding his invitation entirely, but he was fairly certain they'd stop by regardless. Of course, he had extended the invitation _before_ Arya kissed him, before Davos had reminded him what a complete dolt he was being.

Gendry leapt from his seat upon hearing the knock at the door and stood by his hearth with his hands locked behind his torso as though he had been patiently waiting all along. Two serving girls led his guests to the table and got them each a heavy mug of ale before heading back to the kitchens to bring up their dinner.

The Westerners were all dressed more casually than they had been at the feast; only Arya wore the clothing she had the night before. Gendry did not look at it her beyond a quick glance to be sure it was the same. The other three wore clothes he could only presume were from their homelands - Yuisaraq in a soft gown the color of the sea that draped across one shoulder; Niiotha in a loose skirt finished with black fur and a matching leather-lined tunic, both of which were heavily decorated with quills and glass; and Palomai still refused to wear anything over the top half of his body. The small talk was bearable, questions about if he had tried to forge the new metal and if his lords had enjoyed their gifts. "Not yet" and "They seemed to" were all he could muster in response.

The serving staff brought them a typical winter dinner in the Stormlands - fresh-caught white fish simmered in butter, sea water, and garlic. It was served atop a bed of barley that had been steeped in beef broth and onions and was joined on the plate by the last of the kitchen's pickled beets and stinging nettle. The meal was fine, though less indulgent than that which they had enjoyed at the feast. A platter of leftover cakes from the night before waited for them on a short, stone-topped table against the south wall.

Gendry avoided the open seat next to Arya and moved to sit instead between Palomai and Yuisaraq; both of them seemed supremely confused as to why he was there. Niiotha cast him a strange look with her dark eyes as she took the seat he had escaped and Gendry wondered if she knew what had occurred once she'd left the cabinet. He focused on eating and keeping his eyes low on his plate rather than checking to see if pools of steel analyzed his behavior.

Yuisaraq informed them that the fish was similar to one she had enjoyed in her childhood, though that was served with a nutty rice and tropical fruit, not beets and nettle. He explained that they didn't have access to the same produce, though Dorne or more likely the Summer Isles might.

"It seems all life here is different," Palomai observed with contempt.

"Impossible for me to know," Gendry countered. This night was going to last forever.

"No, some things are same. We saw dolphins, ravens, frogs… And heard wolves." If Gendry had to sit next to the angry shirtless man, he was at least glad Yuisaraq sat to his other side.

"Is it true you have wolves as big as horses?" Niiotha asked, her eyes glowing with excitement.

"Almost."

"And is it true that Arya rode one?"

"I never rode Nymeria," Arya corrected. She sounded as frustrated as he felt.

"I don't know about Nymeria, but I did meet her brother's direwolf. He was little smaller than a pony, and they say he's a runt."

"Are there not direwolves here?"

"Long ago, but not anymore. Some farmers claimed they saw one come to the gates of Storm's End a few years ago when I had left for a hunt -"

"You hunt?" Arya asked him in disbelief. He was sure she was remembering their many nights eating frogs on the kingsroad because he was once so inept at catching anything bigger.

"Only when it's required," he allowed himself to glance at her then. She nodded in acceptance and shifted her eyes towards him; he did not let them meet his. "But no, no direwolves in the Stormlands. As far as I know, her old wolf in the Riverlands is the only one south of the Wall."

"Do you think we'll see them when we go North?" Niiotha reminded him of a child sometimes, so unnecessarily energetic and focused on one thing at a time.

"I'm not planning to bring you lot north of the Wall."

"We don't want to go north of the Wall," Palomai responded quickly. The longer section of his hair hung down his neck in a tight baid; he looked utterly uncomfortable with their entire evening. Gendry watched the man's hand explore the same knot of wood he had found earlier - it was possible they weren't so different after all.

"Mayhap her brother will bring his south." He knew he wasn't supposed to speak of such things, but it was pointless to pretend he hadn't heard the rumors. With the Dragon Queen's forces across the Narrow Sea, Jon had nothing to keep him from leaving the Night's Watch. Some even claimed he had gone off to live in the lands north of the Wall, but Gendry knew that was a myth. Jon Snow - or was he supposed to be Aegon Targayen now? - was too honorable to abandon his sentence. He could feel Arya's eyes on him again, but ignored them and turned to Yuisaraq instead.

"I assume you're sailing up to White Harbor?"

The bits of shell and metal in her hair jingled with her nod. She pushed her still-full plate to the side and used the table as a makeshift map, taking care to keep the details of the coastline and its scale impressively accurate.

"Leaving tomorrow," she walked two small fingers down to where the southern coast of the Stormlands would be, "we get back to the ship in two days, then sail to Runestone for ten days. We supply there, then three days sail to White Harbor and ten days in road to Winterfell."

"If winter is harsh it will be over a month, but with good weather we could be there in barely three weeks."

"That's not bad." It had taken Gendry nearly two months to reach Winterfell from Dragonstone, though he had been travelling with thousands of foot soldiers, a queen, and two dragons. The journey had been mostly miserable; at least he had Davos to commiserate with and a Targaryen paying for his meals and lodging. What a strange journey - from peasant child to blacksmith's apprentice to Night's Watch designee to kingsblood-having-bastard to smith to runner to fighter to lord. What would he be next?

"I'm seeing a damn wolf-horse." Niiotha turned her head to look between him and Arya and Gendry noticed she had somehow braided her long hair flat to coil up against the back of her head like a sleeping snake, clasps made of bone locking it against her scalp. He was mildly unnerved at the thought of it striking him if he told her again that she wouldn't see a direwolf.

They finished their meals amidst unenthusiastic discussion about which continent had better fish - Gendry had nothing to add to that conversation. Instead, he listened. Now that they were without the din of a feast or the murmurs of lords, he could properly hear their accents for the first time. All three of them spoke quite differently. As the loudest, it was easiest to hear Niiotha's accent in his quiet solar; she drew out her vowels when they came before an "r" and turned sharp consonants soft - words ending in "g" or "t" lost the final letter entirely. Palomai's sounds were nearly opposite; he seemed to swallow words ending in "ing" and said his "k" and "t" sounds so sharp that they nearly sounded dangerous. Yuisaraq's accent was entirely her own, though that made sense with what she had said the night before about hailing from a distant island she called Baqabatar. She rolled her "r" sounds and had difficulty with harsh vowels, preferring instead to soften or lengthen the sounds; sometimes her words took on a rhythm the like of which he had never heard before.

He supposed they must be speaking the Common Tongue not because they were in Westeros, but because they had all learned it from Arya. Did their continent have its own binding language?

"Gendry?" Arya's voice was soft, as though she were approaching a wounded beast or waking a child. For a moment, he forgot he was ignoring her. He turned when she spoke and was surprised to see concern staring back at him. "Your maester said you had urgent news from the capital last night. Was it Bran?"

"Not Bran. Well… Tyrion for Bran writing as hand, so, in a way." He looked away from her to avoid being pulled into her gaze. "He's fine. They're arresting his master of coin."

"Who is it?"

"Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, Lord of the Reach."

"Bronn? Sellsword Bronn? The Bronn who fought in Tyrion's trial in the Eyrie?" Gendry nodded. "Master of Coin? What was Bran thinking?"

"Something we all can't see yet, I'm sure. Though I think it was Tyrion who gave him the role."

"I never liked him. Only met him twice but both times I wanted to kill him as soon as he spoke." Gendry chuckled. She had good instincts.

"Well," Niiotha said abruptly, "I need to pack for our journey tomorrow. Palomai, come help."

"How am I supposed to help you -" he winced as the table shook and Gendry realized she had kicked him. She had all the subtlety of a dragon. They rose and thanked him for the meal, then exited his solar.

And so they were down to three. Yuisaraq went to refill their ales, but Gendry covered his cup with his hand - he didn't mix well with alcohol and Arya. Besides, he still had those damn sums to sort out. Shit. The sun had set hours earlier and here he was sitting in silence in his solar despite the work waiting for him.

"You two are welcome to stay in here as long as you like, but I need to prepare for tomorrow's meetings. If you need me, I'll be in my chambers." He used his best lordly voice as he gestured to the wooden door separating the rooms. Arya looked him over strangely, then nodded.

"Thank you Lord Gendry. You are kind. I will remember the Stormful Land." He didn't bother correcting Yuisaraq's title for the region. Gendry left the door cracked open enough to suggest they could enter if they needed, though he hoped they would not, and lit the torch bolted to the wall of his bed chambers so that he might better see the numbers he was to somehow balance. In the other room, the two woman spoke softly in a language he assumed to be Yuisaraq's mother tongue.

A high desk housed the work he had moved from the solar. He sat to remove the scrolls and dove into the numbers on the page, making columns to tally each expense owed. Try as he did to pull funds from place to place, they always sank back down. Perhaps the other lords' doubt had been well placed. Gendry circled each number he had to account for and counted a debt of nearly 70 gold dragons. That couldn't be right.

The door from the solar to the hallway shut softly, and he realized that Arya had left without saying goodbye. Wouldn't be the first time, he thought bitterly, unsure of why he cared whether or not she said something to him before starting her journey. It was probably for the best that she hadn't.

Gendry rubbed his eyes with the hand that wasn't stained with ink and returned to the figures. Where the hell was he going to find seventy gold dragons? Surely he must be double counting something.

"Can I help you?" Arya stood just a foot from him, a lemon cake in her left hand. So she hadn't left after all - the thought warmed him. She placed an almond cake on the desk in front of him and looked at her own dessert as though it replayed every mistake she had made in her life. For a moment, he wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, to know how in the seven hells a lemon cake could make someone sad. Gendry shook the thought from his mind. He was imagining things - lemon cakes could no more illicit sadness than they could cure an ailment or find his seventy gold dragons. He tore off a piece of his almond cake and scraped up some of the honey from the top before looking back at his books.

"I've been balancing my figures for years now, Arya. I think I'll be just fine." Why did she think he needed help, anyways?

"Two sets of eyes are better than one," she replied with a nonchalant shrug. He couldn't argue with that. She stood closer still and bent down to review the numbers. Gendry didn't let himself notice the arch in her back or the fact she was close enough that he would touch her if he just sat up straight and held his shoulders to their full size.

Arya picked up the parchment and dipped a quill in ink before hopping up on top of the desk and scribbling onto the pages. "Here," she said after a minute, circling another figure. "You didn't count the cost of the port repairs." How could there be more he had to pay for? "And I think you counted your steel delivery twice." _More like a lord, less like a smith,_ ran cuttingly through his mind.

"How much do you need to find room for?"

Gendry looked at her and braced himself for the worst. "I need enough to save for a possible grain shortage, especially if Bronn managed the Reach like he managed the Kingdom's funds. Then I need to add a woman to my kitchen staff and give her and her son daily bread, a bed, and a modest wage; eighty silver stags to fix the sept destroyed by lightning last month; and…. somewhere between twenty and thirty gold dragons for things I've promised in hearing petitions." He waited for her reprimand but it never came.

"Where are your incomes?"

"What?"

"You only marked your expenses but I don't see your incomes. You must be exporting something or charging duties. And when do you collect taxes?"

"Taxes are collected around the third and ninth moon of every year." He leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair as he thought, sighing before he continued, "We export lumber and fish, sometimes amber, and we charge duties to the Reach and the Crownlands but not Dorne - that was part of the Neutrality Agreement. It's less official, but I've also got the smiths exporting armour and weapons now - a few hundred pieces a month." She nodded.

"How much do those bring in? Do you have last year's figures?" Gendry rummaged through the third drawer of the desk and found scrolls summarizing the earnings from the year prior. Arya chewed on the quill as she looked them over.

"Oh. This isn't so bad."

"Isn't it?" He wanted to see what she did, but that would require hovering over her thighs.

"Look," she flipped the scroll towards him and tapped a few numbers with the chewed quill end. "Your fishing exports went up last year, and you're only charging duties at Grandview, Bronzegate, and your capital. You really don't check ships?"

Gendry shook his head. "It's hard enough for them to get into Shipbreaker Bay." Anyone who'd brave that port didn't need to have their ship searched for coins to pinch.

"My crew and I docked in Mistwood and didn't report to anyone either. You should really install gates at any port that docks more than fifteen ships per month. You're so close to Essos, they must be saving a fortune by docking here first. That will pay more than you need for the petitions and the sept." She bit her lip again, for a moment returning to that girl fumbling with a rain-drenched map as she tried to find their way to the Trident. "You're going to have to raise taxes for the grain preparations."

"I'm not asking people to go hungry now so they might be less hungry later."

"Of course not. You could just raise them on anyone who holds their own lands; raise their tax by 2% and they'll barely notice the difference while you get easily a hundred more gold dragons a year for your harvest woes. Besides, if you do have a shortage they'll eat more than they paid in the grain you give them."

"Shouldn't I be making more custom pieces in the forge? A suit of armour for a landed knight can earn us another fifty silver stags."

Arya smiled at him and shook her head lightly. "No. If you truly want to, I suppose, but it doesn't make much sense. How long does it take you to make a suit of armour? More than a week?" He thought about it for a moment, but she didn't wait for a response. "As lord you've got to manage your time - you can't just run the Stormlands by day and smith custom orders by night. Use your time on your people." She picked up the lemon cake again and took another bite.

Gendry looked at her in wonder. Her short legs swung off the ground from the desk casually, and she nibbled the cake like she hadn't just solved all of his problems in a few minutes. He had anticipated spending all night combing through every number, calculating how many swords and shields he'd need to craft himself to balance just a few of the charges; Arya had figured them out as easily as he might determine the depth of a sword's fuller. It was selfish, but he felt exasperation begin to knot in his lungs. For all her talk of not being a lady, she seemed perfectly suited for the damn role. He had never held the decision not to marry him against her, but his frustration burned twice as hot now that he had a glimpse of how it could have been.

"I'm still going to marry the Dornishgirl." Gendry blurted out. He knew he was being childish, speaking out of spite rather than reason, but he didn't care.

"As you should."

The way she seemed completely at peace with the concept vexed him more than he cared to admit. She broke off another piece of her lemon cake before speaking again.

"Though, I hope for both your sakes that she's a woman and not a girl."

"What's the difference?" She threw him a judgmental look. "Besides the obvious?" He added so she wouldn't think he was completely obtuse.

"A girl doesn't know the world as it is, she believes in her songs and that princes and kings will sweep her away until life finally cuts her down and tears her to bits; a woman sees the world for the hellscape it is and learns to use that to her advantage to shape her decisions." It sounded like self-important bullshit to Gendry. Was this how she rationalized her own decisions - by claiming she was just doing the right thing as a woman?

"Sematics," he muttered. "Do they care this much about words in the West?"

"Semantics," she corrected pointedly. Instantly he felt like a poor, ignorant blacksmith again, "and yes, they care about the difference between women and girls. There we don't just exist for breeding; you don't become a woman just to pump out children and satisfy a husband. Being a woman means filling a different role. It doesn't matter if you marry or mother, your place is the same once you become a woman." She put down the lemon cake and studied her hands briefly before looking up at him with eyes clear of any doubt. "Women in the West aren't caged by men, they have choices."

"And girls?"

"Girls are children - they live to play and learn, not to be stuck inside practicing needlepoint and curtsies while their brothers laugh and swing swords. They do just as boys do."

"I'm amazed you ever left," he said, hoping his eyes didn't cary the venom he was failing to keep from his words. She was clearly better suited for the other continent. "Men and women at the same level, no king or queen, men never wear shirts - why come back at all?"

Arya almost laughed at his question, but the laughter died out from her eyes before it left her mouth and her face shifted back to the same look she had given the lemon cake earlier.

"I came back because I had to." The sorrow swept out towards Gendry and melted away his anger. He said no more, directing his eyes instead to stare at a burnt mark in the stone beneath the torch.

He could feel Arya looking at him again and slowly flickered his eyes to her, his face still turned to the flame. A smirk waited for him - he had not expected it. "It's not just men who don't wear shirts in the West, you know." She arched an eyebrow as if to challenge him. He decided to take her up on it.

"Did you?" This was a dangerous game - he was sure she had lured him into it intentionally in an effort to shut off whatever that was she showed when she looked at the lemon cake and spoke of coming back to Westeros.

"Only when it was cool enough to need one."

Gendry forced his eyes to remain locked on hers rather than glancing below her neck. Even with eye contact, the memory of her naked chest pressed against his lingered on his mind.

"Sounds like a distracting place. No wonder their council meetings take weeks." _They must pause to go off and fuck every hour._

Arya considered it and let her feet kick in controlled swings again.

"It actually isn't. They're accustomed to it - flesh doesn't arouse them in the same way. Besides, they're more open sexually in general, so there's less tension between the genders." Gendry had heard of similar attitudes in the islands between Essos and Westeros. "Not unlike the Dornish." She raised her left brow again in a way that terrified him.

_Fuck_. She knew. It wasn't remorse - what he'd done wasn't wrong - but he felt oddly like a rabbit in a trap when she looked at him with that knowing expression. He had to even the score if he was going to win.

"So you were free to fight and fuck as much as you wanted and you still somehow crossed the sea again?"

"It was a lot more fighting than fucking, really." So there _was_ fucking. He was still losing this game - he needed to know who, why, how.

"How many?" He finally managed, doing his best to mimic the tone she had used with him back in Winterfell before their first night together.

"Two men," she answered, her voice flat. "And one woman." That caught him off guard. He must have looked confused, because she shrugged again. "I thought that could be what was wrong with me, that maybe a woman would be better." _What was wrong with me_ \- his heart ached a little at that.

"And?"

"She was better than the men," Arya took a steadying breath before locking eyes with him again, "But she still wasn't you."

That was it, he had lost.

Gendry had no recollection of leaving his chair. Somehow he was standing in front of where she sat on the desk, his lips crushing hers like they would disappear if he didn't kiss her as hard and fast as he could. Fuck Dorne, fuck an incomplete betrothal, fuck house Dayne. He didn't want violet eyes, shiny black hair, or an even temper - he wanted Arya.

It was clear she wanted him, too. Her small hand rose to his face and he surprised even himself with the tenderness that radiated from his kiss as her thumb grazed the scar over his cheek, the only mark left on him from their battle against the dead. They slowed then, shifting from fast rough crashes of sea upon stone to slower, open mouthed kisses like annealing steel.

Arya tugged his tunic closer to her and wrapped her legs around him. He let his hands roam her lithe body, savoring every curve and muscle. She went for his shirt first; he moved his head away just long enough to rip it off, not caring about the tearing sound he heard from a seam in the shoulder as he did so. Arya's hands were cold against his flesh, cooling him down as they skimmed his chest and abdomen. He kissed her slowly again and let their tongues dance like wind caressing leaves.

Gendry's hands found the ties of her jerkin and worked at them clumsily; he would not peel away long enough to look at what he was doing. She laughed beneath his lips and helped loosen the cords along her shoulders until they were loose enough to slide her arms through the leather and let him pull it over her head; it vaguely occurred to him that she was not wearing smallclothes or an underlayer beneath it.

He stepped back for a moment, only wanting to be apart long enough to view her. She was just as she so often appeared in his dreams - her waist was tight from fighting, breasts larger than they seemed beneath her garb, shoulders and arms well-defined. Gendry sighed in relief that there was only one new scar. A faint slice over her left ribcage, nothing like the dark memories of terror forever etched upon her lower stomach.

Two black lines half the width of a finger had been tattooed to engulf the curve where her left shoulder met her bicep; semi-circles arched over them to meet the bands. If he weren't lightheaded with need, he may have asked if they held some meaning or where she had gotten them.

Arya's fingers flew to his own new scars. Her grey eyes sank - she must have understood that he got the worst of them protecting her brother. Arya pressed the scar on his shoulder gingerly, then pulled him back towards her to kiss again. He moved his lips to her neck and didn't stop her from tracing her hand along the solid length beneath his breeches. Each touch made him less able to wait. He kissed her again and pushed as close to her as he could; once her legs wrapped around him, he shoved both hands beneath her and picked her up to cross the distance to his bed.

In the many instances Gendry had imagined how their first time together might happen after her return, he had always convinced himself he would be slow; he had imagined he would savor every inch of her with his hands and tongue alike. Now that it was finally happening he found himself too impatient - he would take his time with her later. They made quick work of removing their boots and pants, and it was only a few more heated kisses and strokes of the hand before he felt himself slide into her warm, slick embrace. He worked into her, pressing her firmly into his bed with every strong push, hands and mouth a fiery blaze upon her skin until she started to writhe beneath him and gasp words without meaning. She kissed him wildly after, and he came undone within her just a few minutes later.

They laid in his bed for what may have been seconds or whole years, a sweaty heap of whispers, gentle touches, and soft smiles. Finally he came to enough to get the ale from the solar and lock the door to his chambers before settling down beside her again and falling back into the lust he had just escaped. Thrice that night they became one, each time sweeter than the last, until the moon had set and sleep washed over them both.

.

.

.

**Arya**

Arya awoke to the sound of harsh winds and violent seas. She had just had the most glorious dream, a dream so real that she could almost smell Gendry on her skin and feel a damp soreness between her legs.

Rumbling thunder carried loudly through the window. Strange, she thought, her mind still clouded with sleep - that window was welded shut. Arya pried open her heavy lids to see the first rays of early dawn light bathe her pillow a soft pink. How could that be, when her room faced south? A few more minutes of sleep would make things right again.

She closed her eyes and shoved her face into the soft furs, trying to ignore the way her mind was still making her smell Gendry as he had been in her dream. Just as she began to drift off to sleep again, the door opened.

Arya sat upright. Where was her dagger? It always lived under her pillow when she slept, but it was nowhere to be found. The sleep cleared from her mind instantly and she was ready to fight.

A figure approached her the darkness and she waited, ready to throw her weight into them to topple them over long enough for her to find a weapon. Finally he was close enough to see his shape, shoulders she would recognize anywhere: Gendry. So it hadn't been a dream, after all. She looked to the window and saw it was open - this was not her room.

He slid off his clothing and joined her in the bed, smiling with something that resembled pride before enveloping her in his arms with a kiss far stronger than she expected in such early hours. His kiss soon moved from her mouth to the rest of her body, settling upon the soreness he had caused the night before. Arya let her fingers run through his hair as he worked at her; she twisted the locks absentmindedly as she grew closer to her release until finally she let go of him all together and clenched her hands around the sheets instead. When she was done, his lips and tongue took the long route back up, detouring to pause on her scars and breasts and neck, and finally meeting her eager mouth. They spent the rest of the morning that way - grinding and thrusting until they both had collapsed into a wonderful mess of moans, trembling legs, and gasps. This was certainly one way to wake up.

A few hours passed swiftly as they slept entangled with one another. A gentle knock on the door woke them

"Lord Baratheon," the voice called, "Will you be joining the maester and lords for rounds this afternoon?"

Gendry raised his head groggily, his black tresses a wild mess that resembled a bird's nest more than actual hair. "I'm afraid I'm not feeling well, Rowena. Please tell the maester and any others I'll be spending the day getting some rest." He placed a rough hand on Arya's thigh and caressed the thick scar she had gotten from her first fight west of Westeros. His serving girl wished him well through the door and left. The thought of Gendry feigning illness to stay with her warmed Arya's heart - she had done the same to avoid more boring lessons with her septa as a child.

"Does she know I'm here?" she asked him. Back in Winterfell servants always opened the door after knocking unless they had reason not to.

Gendry looked unsure. "I know my maester saw you when he came to speak with me before my meetings this morning, but I don't see why she would. Unless she came in before you woke." Arya met his perfect blue eyes uneasily - she hadn't wanted to cause him trouble. His maester would likely keep her presence to himself - Maester Luwin certainly would have had her family been so scandalous. "There's nothing we can do about it now," he assured her simply before wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close to him. Her face pressed lightly against his chest as they drifted off to sleep again.

In the afternoon, Arya woke for good. She was absolutely starving. The almond cake she had brought him from the solar the night before was still on the desk, as was the last remainder of her lemon cake, so she ate them both while he slept.

She longed for water, but they had only the leftover ale from the night before. Arya tried a sip and cringed at the stale taste against her tongue. Thirsty, hungry, and mildly aggravated, she returned to the bed. Gendry opened his eyes gently and smiled at her again before propping himself up onto the mass of pillows - that only made her feel worse. What was she doing here?

The stupid braids Yuisaraq had pulled tight across the sides of her head brought a dull ache and the rest of her hair had already escaped its plait from the constant friction against the pillow. Arya unwound them all and ran her fingers through the tight waves left in their wake, then tried to stimulate some blood flow where the braids had pulled against her scalp.

Gendry pulled her towards him and did it for her. She ought to move away from him - this was more an act of intimacy than sexual desire, and intimacy could only end poorly. Her body acted against her mind, lids closing as she leaned back and relished in the feeling of blood returning to half her head.

"Is this common there?" He asked curiously as he picked up the dyed strands that fell from the center of her scalp. Arya turned to face him but let his arms remain resting on her shoulders so his hands could continue to drive the pain from her head.

"Remember the…" What could she call it? 'Lie' would be the most accurate thing, though she had only claimed it to make things easier. "strategy I mentioned to be taken seriously?" Gendry nodded but seemed determined not to meet her eye. "The women in Baqabatar dye part of hair to indicate that they're married. A stripe through the middle of my head seemed as clear as I could be." He looked at the hair in question, which now spread to skim both shoulders.

His fingers stopped moving on her scalp. "The quiet woman with you, her hair is dyed too." She knew what he was asking; Yuisaraq's hair was dyed only along the bottom, and the color was far more vibrant than the dull shade left on her own head.

"It's just fresher," she explained. "I stopped dying mine as soon as we left their shores."

"So she's married? Actually married, not just saying she is, I mean."

Arya sighed and rolled her eyes. She turned to face the rest of the room again, leaning back against Gendry as though he were her own personal headboard.

"She was. Her husband journeyed with us. He was overcome with an affliction of the lungs as soon as we reached Last Light; within a week he went from healthy and vibrant to a shivering, coughing mess. By the time we reached Greenstone he was too frail to leave the ship."

"Greenstone?"

Arya nodded against his throat.

"You were in the Stormlands? Before you came here?" It was funny, really - she had put so much effort into making sure he didn't know she was there, only to tell him while lying in his bed hardly a week later.

"Only so he could pass. We hoped solid ground might help him, but it was too late. He lasted only two days before death came for him. Yuisaraq gave him a funeral at sea on our way to King's Landing."

Gendry said nothing in response, but moved his hand from her head to rest upon the edge of her right hip. They sat that way for some time, neither speaking nor moving until Gendry finally left his chambers to ask a serving girl to bring water and some bread. The bread was fresh and hot, served with salty butter, an apple, and a hunk of sharp cheese. Once she had eaten, Arya found her eyes had lost their instinct to roll in disdain at everything he said.

"Did your lords consider your suggestions?" Arya asked him after he finished the bread. She leaned against the large, dark wardrobe that towered to the left of his desk, still entirely undressed.

Gendry lightly snorted. Apparently it hadn't gone well.

"They're not happy that I want to charge landowners and not smallfolk, but eventually they yielded. Davos says they think I care more for peasants than I do for them."

"Do you?"

He looked at her and made a face that told her his lords weren't far from the truth. They both laughed. Gendry's contempt for the higher classes had always sat well with her; she especially liked that fact his new position as one of the most powerful lords in the land hadn't changed that.

"There are more smallfolk anyways - I think you're better off with them on your side than with your silk-clad lords." His eyes shimmered as she spoke, and before she knew what was going on he was on her again, kissing her against the wardrobe like his life depended on it. She grabbed his hair and kissed him back just as fervently. His rough hands cupped her breasts as she pushed her body against his.

Someone pounded loudly on the door to the solar. Even with the blood pounding in her ears and the two doors between them, Arya could hear that it was Niiotha.

"M'lady, you can't just enter the Lord's chambers whenever you please," someone urged. She argued with them loudly, claiming she had left a satchel there when they had dined the night before. The man's point that she was already wearing one earned no response.

Gendry looked to her without amusement. "That's _your_ friend."

"It's your room. Bring her in here and I'll deal with it." He looked down at his undeniable evidence of what they were just about to do and then back to her incredulously. Arya went back to the bed to bury herself beneath the sheets and furs and laughed as he threw on a robe and shuffled out of the room.

"M'lord, we tried to keep her from waking you."

"It's alright Northam. I'll speak with her alone in my solar." The door shut and a moment later Niiotha entered his bedchambers beside him.

She saw Arya beneath the fabrics covering his bed and snickered before straightening her face into a look of pure impatience.

"Are you really this stupid?" Gendry looked offended for her, but she was used to this. She raised her brow and turned her hand out in question.

Niiotha turned her fury on Gendry.

"You were just going to lie in here all day? Did you bring her moon tea?" He flushed at the question.

"I was going to go steal some from the maester's stores later," Arya admitted.

"Does your maester even have moon tea?"

Gendry blanched. "I - I don't know. Probably?" At least his guests weren't using it often, Arya supposed.

"Useless, the both of you." Niiotha untied the bag across her shoulder and took out a small sack the size of an apple.

"One pinch of this in hot water morning and night. Let it steep until it's as brown as mud." Arya opened her mouth to thank her, but she wasn't done. "We're still going north and Yuisaraq doesn't want to wait for this," her hands waved around in the air as though describing a massive, intangible disaster, "to finish. We'll ride south tonight and sail up. It would be too awkward to be alone without you in your homelands, so just expect us in three days - two nights." She frowned and eyed Gendry again before looking back to Arya with something resembling sympathy. "Drink the damn tea."

Niiotha left as quickly as she had entered, a flurry of muttering and head shaking. Gendry locked the door behind her and looked awkwardly at the bag she had left, then back at Arya. He laid in bed again, robe still fastened across his defined abdomen, and leaned against the headboard next to her. "Please tell me the whole continent isn't like that."

.

.

Later that day, when the sun had sunk below the surrounding forest, he requested the serving staff bring supper and a kettle they could hang over the fire.

"Shouldn't we be more discreet?" Arya asked him when he left the door to his chamber open to receive the food.

"Most lords have bastards and no one bats an eye, but the Bringer of the Dawn graces my bed and I'm expected to hide her?" Arya sighed at his naiveté. His pride in her was sweet, but she would not let him risk the respect of his people for a few days with her. She told him as much, but he waved it off and brought the large tray of venison stew and a hearty, dark bread to her for them to share.

"Is it strange to eat your house sigil?" Arya asked when she realized the savory meat steaming before them was the same symbol Gendry was supposed to embody.

He shrugged. "Didn't even know I was a stag until a few years ago. And before then I never thought it was strange to eat bull's meat." She smiled at the reference. What she wouldn't give to go back to those days on the kingsroad… as hungry and exhausted and terrified as they had been, they at least had each other; there was no business of houses or sums, she was not Lady Stark or Princess Arya or whatever they called her now and he was not Lord Baratheon - they were just Arya and Gendry. She dipped her bread into the stew and did her best not to think about what might have happened had things gone differently.

As much as she enjoyed giving into their every urge in his bed, Arya began to feel somewhat bored by the second day - there was only so much one could do confined to bedchambers, and they had done most of those things many times over. Gendry seemed perfectly happy to sleep most of the day, which only made her boredom worse. As long as he was awake, she was amused by tales of his early mistakes and recollections of her journeys afar, but she became restless while he slept. She had tried asking about his responsibilities - surely he had a meeting she could wander around during or petitions she could listen in on - but he assured her that wouldn't be an issue. "I've given my all to being a lord for four years, I can take a few days to enjoy you being here," he'd said. He meant it to be romantic, but Arya worried it was awfully impulsive for someone whose lords were already all but threatening their support.

Late that afternoon, when Gendry drifted off into a deep slumber after a particularly exhausting session, she decided to find something to do. He had kissed her shoulder tenderly before falling fast asleep - a fascinating contrast from just minutes earlier, when he had bent her over his bed and thrusted so perfectly rough and deep that she wasn't able to quiet her voice when she came. Arya gently prodded her lower abdomen to be sure she still had all her organs in place (a ludicrous thought, considering the fact she had survived a knife stabbing those very organs multiple times in Braavos) and left him sleeping in bed.

It seemed cruel to make him wake up alone, so she opted to entertain herself with what she found in the room. There were still too many things she didn't want to know about his activities over the past few years; she promised herself she would not inspect anything personal and chose instead to look through the figures she had skimmed the night she helped with his sums.

The numbers told the story of a lord loyal to his people - most of his funds went to food for the masses, public celebrations, and building repairs. She inspected another scroll, this one detailing the costs of repairing and replenishing the stables in his second year. Whoever he had worked with charged him far too much. She moved to another piece of parchment that carefully inspected grain storage in Summerhall; they had enough grain to feed the Stormlands thrice over, yet he had still circled it and scratched "follow up every three moonturns" as though he was worried they would not last the winter. It reminded her of Sansa, insisting that they needed more grain despite the fact they had more than their people could possibly eat.

When she had finished with every record in the large drawer, she opened a second. He had hired dozens of staff - _probably too many_ \- and paid them more than was typical. It was no mystery why his lords believed he put smallfolk first - they weren't wrong. Wages for meager jobs rose considerably while his trusted advisors from noble houses saw no increase at all.

A surprising amount had gone into the smithy in his first year - it must have been built for him specifically. Each tally of steel and materials made her think of the impressive wolf sword hanging in his storeroom. There were other smithing charges, too, some sort of network with the smiths spread around the region and -

"Find anything interesting?" Arya put down the scroll and turned her attention to Gendry.

"You're apprenticing smiths," she said. Her voice came out sweeter than she had ever heard it before - that wouldn't happen again.

"Just three for now. Once they get the basics down I'll rotate them to the other smiths and take on a few more." It was lovely, the idea that he would train them just as he had been trained in King's Landing.

Maester Forreal knocked on the solar door to tell him of a raven from the capital and Gendry passed Arya a night shirt so she might hear the news as well. The maester was a thin man well past sixty with a surprisingly full head of thick, silver hair and a face coated in white stubble. Arya had wrapped a blanket over the billowing nightshirt as to seem more modest, but the maester didn't seem to care either way.

He passed Gendry the scroll, who waited to unfurl it until he sat back with Arya again so that they would learn its contents together. Unsurprisingly, Bronn had not come willingly; he had killed the goldcloaks who attempted his arrest and fled back to Highgarden. There was no word on whether Bran would send troops or if the Reach would defend their lord. Arya re-read the message a few times to try to find something that might exist between the words, but there seemed to be nothing else.

"Do you have connections in the Reach?" She asked the maester.

"None close to me, but some who may have more information on their people's thoughts on these happenings. I could write to them."

"Thank you." Arya wasn't sure why she was speaking to him of instead letting Gendry ask his own questions, or why he was agreeing to write to these men for her at all. By the time he heard back she'd have been gone for days. The maester mentioned that he would ask the serving staff to send up food for them on his way out and eyed the bag Niiotha had left on the desk, clearly familiar with its ingredients; she wondered if he approved of her more or less because of it.

Despite her boredom that afternoon, she and Gendry did not grow tired of each other for the remainder of her time with him. They were just as content sitting in silence as they were entertaining one another with stories from their time apart. There were no heartfelt confessions this time - he did not declare his love or ask her to stay, at least not with words, and Arya was glad for it. She had no idea what they were doing, hidden away together for three days, and it was easier to keep it that way. It would be cruel to add words that would echo through both their minds as soon as they parted.

The night passed quickly.

Soon they were in the early hours of the morning of her departure. Gendry lay beside her, both of them half awake, and pressed her body closer to his. His heart beat strong and slow against her back as they laid together. Aya twisted around, still within his arms, and kissed him slowly. Time with Gendry always passed differently - an hour in his bed could feel like an eternity or a mere blink. This time was closer to the latter. She was unsure how long they kissed, but the sun had breached the clouds by the time she finally pinned him beneath her weight and sheathed him within her, rising and thrusting herself back down upon him with her face in buried in the crook of his neck. He met her rhythm in turn and guided her to the exact angle and speed she needed to peak. Once she had, he smiled at her softly, gently moving the hair from her face to roll her to her side and kiss her senseless. He soon found the path to his own finish and grunted into her shoulder as he came. Their breathing synchronized in the morning light; Arya found herself strangely sentimental about the way the rise and fall of their chests matched as they lay together breathing heavily in the brightening room.

The sky was perfectly clear for the first time since she had entered his bed chamber - no storms would keep her ship from docking today.

The sun soon rose too high to pretend it was not past time for her to leave. She sipped her moon tea slowly, a difficult task with the sour grease it left upon her tongue. Gendry's fingertips skimmed her thigh and she closed her eyes to better remember the feeling. It was only Winterfell, but in some ways this was just as hard as it had been to leave for her journey west. Mercifully, Gendry did not ask her if or when she might return to Storm's End; in truth she did not know.

The cool leathers of her clothing felt strangely constrictive and repressing as she laced them shut. Arya walked back to the large bed and sat with him again for a moment, enjoying the feeling of his calloused hand within hers.

"Ask the kitchens for whatever you want to bring with," he said softly. She nodded, her eyes still focused on the fireplace across from her. He kissed her cheek and she shut her eyes. It felt almost as though she was forcing herself awake from a perfect dream. Gendry gently turned her face towards him and kissed her lips. "I'll write to Winterfell if there are any updates from King's Landing." She nodded again, eyes still closed, before kissing him once more, then rested her forehead against his. There was no logical reason for this to be hard.

Arya forced herself up and walked towards the door. _Once can't hurt_, she excused as she turned to glimpse his face. Gendry looked back at her with eyes the color of a sunlit sea - those eyes she had intentionally not met all morning lest she drown in their adoration and regret. As a gesture of goodwill, she left the remainder of the moon tea on his desk, unsure if it would be she or Lady Dayne who used it next.


	5. Chapter 5 - Winterfell

_Chapter V: Winterfell_

**Sansa**

"They'll need to delay the delivery until after the storm, your grace." A wool-clad man with hollow cheeks and wisps of brown hair flattened against an otherwise bare scalp was updating Sansa on a shipment of steel that she had sent for nearly three moonturns ago.

"An unfortunate delay. Please tell them I wish them warmth for their journey and would like to renegotiate our rate when they arrive." The man hurried off to send a raven.

The best battlement in Winterfell was that between the Broken Tower and the First Keep, facing north but high enough to see all the way to the stables and even the dark edge of the godswood. Sansa climbed the stairs to that view now, her guards always a few strides behind her. The stairway had been badly damaged in the battle against the dead - no amount of scrubbing and lye had managed to clear it of the blood that soaked the grey stone a sickening shade of rust. Staining aside, the stonemasons had done fine work rebuilding the walls and missing slabs of granite.

Much of Winterfell was the same - rebuilt and strong enough, but forever marked by the terrors of the Long Night for those who knew where to see them, just as real as the flowing spring water hidden within the castle walls.

Sansa was grateful for the heat those springs brought her now. She pressed a bare palm to the warm stone for a breath, then retuned her glove to her hand and continued up to the battlement.

Her sister was due to arrive within the day. How she thought she could possibly just return without writing to Winterfell ahead of time was beyond her - did she think was so unaware of her kingdom that she would just be pleasantly surprised at her unannounced return? Her mind conjured other, darker possibilities, too, like the concept that she may have not warned of her return because she wanted to have the upper hand or to make the Queen in the North look unprepared. Sansa sighed at her own paranoia. This was her little sister; she was strange, sure, and tended towards violence and darkness at times, but she wasn't manipulative or power hungry.

She descended the battlement and made her way to the great hall, where a dozen servants scurried like ants to finish preparing the feast Sansa had arranged. She smirked as she saw the flower-lined tables and silver-engraved seat beside her throne - Arya would hate it. The head kitchen girl told her that the food would be ready by sunset. Spare rooms had been prepared, bundles of wood delivered to each for the fires and furs lined upon the beds. Most regents would be leave such details to someone in their employ, but Sansa Stark was not most regents. She took her role as queen quite seriously; it would take only a few slips of indolence for her to jeopardize her entire kingdom. The lords and ladies of North had always been more involved in the management of their homes, and she saw no reason why that wouldn't extend to royalty.

"Your grace," her steward approached as her graceful fingers traced the top of the main fire's mantelpiece for dust. "Riders approach. Possibly the Princess." Sansa looked at the threads spidering from the seams of his cloak and made mental note to have her handmaidens make him a new one; her steward could not look as though he were being denied basic necessities.

"Thank you, Lord Ryswell. Call a few dozen who may find her return of interest." The tall man nodded and left the hall to do as she had bid. "Volayne," Sansa called calmly. A dull looking woman in a scratchy, grey wool gown approached her and curtsied. "Please tell the ladies of my sister's arrival and ask them to meet us at the gates to welcome her warmly."

"At once, your grace," she said with another off-balance curtsy before hurrying off to the gaggle of ladies wandering the grounds.

Sansa straightened the crown atop her head and donned a thick, fur-lined cloak. Two guards followed her into the courtyard, where those waiting bowed and made a wide area for her to stand.

The heavy metal gates opened and the assembly cheered for their returning hero. Arya rode in first, her eyes wide in surprise before closing as she turned down her lips. She liked neither crowds nor recognition - now she was surrounded by both. She looked much the same as she had when she left, though her skin was its summer shade and she had done something dreadful with her hair.

Three people rode behind her, two pulling half a dozen chests on large sleighs. Either she was traveling with an entire armory of her own or she had brought back goods from the West; both seemed equally as plausible. The group with her were all handsome in face and healthy-looking in frame. A man with a well-defined jaw, scrutinizing dark eyes, and an odd hairstyle followed her, his skin the color of faded tawny. Beside him rode two women. The first appeared petite even beneath her many warm layers, with a round face and hair braided to expose clean lines of scalp that came together in a small bun. The other was taller, likely close to Sansa's height, with a long, dark plait that swung like a rope; her face was long and sharp, defined by clear cut cheekbones and a bony nose that jutted from her skull and then fell into a straight line.

Arya met her eyes and Sansa nearly forgot to contain her excitement. She called her emotions back in as her sister dismounted her horse and approached her cautiously.

"The Queen in the North," Arya said sarcastically as she looked to her; Sansa wondered if she was going to attempt a facetious curtsy or a bow. Thankfully she did neither, and instead engulfed her with small, strong arms. Sansa hugged her back.

"Welcome to the North," she stated to the guests, "you'll be brought to your rooms shortly, where a bath will be brought to you so you might recover before the feast."

Arya sighed and looked to her with those grey eyes that called forth painful memories of the man from whom she had inherited them. "Was all of this necessary?" She asked, tilting her head towards the still-growing crowd.

Sansa directed them inside and looked at her sister - she seemed to expect an answer. "The Stormlands, Arya? Really?" That got her to lower her guard. She looked away and made a strange face, like she was trying to defend her actions within her mind rather than to Sansa herself. The sisters entered the castle and Arya was brought to her room.

A few hours later, the feast was well underway and Arya had not yet arrived. For a moment, Sansa worried she would skip this feast as she had the one celebrating their victory over the Night King the last time she was in their home - the queen couldn't very well leave the feast to scold her little sister, so Sansa asked her handmaiden to find the little assassin.

The maid had not yet left the table when Arya approached and sat beside the Queen.

"I had begun to think you weren't coming," Sansa said without looking at her as she sipped from her goblet and smiled at passing guests.

"I was delayed."

"Apparently."

Her companions arrived soon after, unsure of where to go or sit; Sansa had not thought to prepare places for them at their main table. They finally found a bench elsewhere and dove into the meal before them.

Sansa followed suit, allowing her server to make her a plate. The kitchens had done well considering the fact they were still deep within Winter - wild boar roasted with shallots and apples then basted in white wine, turnips that had been pulverized and whipped with butter and goatsmilk, and stewed greens picked from their glasshouses just the day before all filled their plates.

The meal was rich and warm, perfect for the dropping temperatures that could only mean a storm was imminent. Her sister still had the table manners of their house sigil, devouring her meal without stopping to converse with the lords or ladies seated beside her.

"Princess Arya," Lord Rywell began, "On behalf of the North, I would like to personally welcome you back to Winterfell. It has been a privilege to serve as steward under your sister. If you see anything not to your liking, please do make me or my pages aware." She did not respond, focused instead on scooping up the last of her turnips. Sansa nudged her with her foot.

"Thank you, my lord. It is good to be home." It couldn't possibly be that hard to keep basic manners.

"Did you bring your companions back from your travels?" Asked Lady Lyra Boggs.

Arya flashed her eyes to her with frustration. "I didn't bring them anywhere, they chose to accompany me back to the East." No matter what her hair looked like, she was still the same Arya.

"Might you show them to us?" Asked Lord Norrey, the thin skin around his eyes crinkling despite his young age.

"They're people, not exotic silks or jewels. If you want to speak with them you're welcome to approach them yourself - they do speak the Common Tongue." The lord sat back against his chair in stunned silence.

When Sansa glanced at those very people now, she saw that Arya did not lie. The three travelers sat speaking with wide-eyed nobles who had crowded around their table to ask question of their world. The prettiest of them had taken down her tight plaits and pushed back her hair with white leather; perhaps it was an illusion of the light, but the ends looked as though they had been dipped in wine. Her garb was likely beautiful, but a cloak of thick grey fur covered all but the flowing skirt of a periwinkle dress. Her small, dark hands looked almost delicate, at least compared to Arya and the others, and were decorated with a few rings of a metal that had been painted red and adorned with pearls - when she moved her hands they glinted copper light brighter than a shooting star. The other woman was much less elegant. She had loosened and lowered her braid, though two smaller ones swung down to the edge of her long face and looped back to connect with their larger sister. She wore some strange outfit of embellished grey leather and fur that showed more skin than had likely ever been revealed in Winterfell before, and that was with a black underlayer over her arms. The woman wore long and white strands from her ears - bone or some sharpened shell, perhaps. The man accompanying them was dressed as strangely as the taller woman, with tight softened hides laced up his long legs connecting to a covering of the same material that had a flap across the front and back; both had been painted or engraved with the colorful outline of some sort of flower. He wore a simple wool tunic that did not seem fitted to him in the least, and instead hung loosely from this ams and sliced down his body on a bias.

The servers brought them out a dessert Sansa had requested specially for Arya - pears poached in wine and spices, a favorite of hers on their journey to King's Landing.

"No lemon cakes?" Arya asked her.

Sansa sighed, longing for her favorite treat. "No, we haven't had lemons since the Dragon Queen brought them with her. It seems too frivolous to ship them north in the winter months."

"You're the queen, if you want lemon cakes you should get lemon cakes." Sansa smiled. If only ruling could be so simple.

Other than Arya's snide responses and the lewd way one of her crew smirked at nearly every man who passed her by, the evening passed without incident. She did answer questions genuinely when they weren't absurd, and everyone who asked something reasonable left with a shadow of an idea of what existed in the West.

As the evening came to a close, Sansa considered suggesting a cheer for the Hero of the North to rile up her sister one last time. She decided against it after a glance; Arya was already visibly uncomfortable with the attention shown to her by the others at their table. She had suffered enough to get the point.

The feast was tame, more an excuse to cause a little friendly discomfort for Arya than anything else. That entertained Sansa, but was hardly reason for the guests to stay. Any who needed to get to the shelter of their homes before the storm arrived parted as soon as their plates were clear, and the rest trickled out as the mead began to pour less generously the closer they got to the careful ration limit set by their queen during preparations.

Arya lingered. She did not leave her seat to go to her crew as Sansa expected, but instead stayed by her side. Although the words between them had been few, it was a wonderful feeling to have her sister back.

Lord Rywell was the last to leave their table. "I'm afraid I must bid you goodnight, your grace." Sansa thanked him for the evening and he turned to the seat to her left. "Winterfell is warmer with your return, Princess Arya." She smiled emptily and he made his way out of the hall.

"You can't let them call me that," she pleaded. Sansa smirked - Arya Stark was home.

.

The storm would last five days, lashing Winterfell with icy winds and dumping enough snow to reach the middle of the porticullis. Servants ran to the gates hourly to push the snow from the pathways with large shield-like shovels, but gusts would just blow it back as soon as they had withdrawn. It was far from the worst storm of the winter, Sansa knew it would be costly. Each battering of wind against her window reminded her of the cost of repairing the ice damage to the roof of the machicolations after a brutal storm the year before or how the delays in the latest wool trade from White Harbor might keep the shepherds' tables without bread. The Queen in the North sat sleepless in front of her fire on the third night, every howl of wind adding a new charge to her mental tally.

A soft knock sounded at her door. Sansa stood and wrapped herself in a fur, wondering why the knocker had not announced themselves. She had already taken down her long hair and removed her crown for the evening - hopefully the visitor would be quick enough to speak to through a crack in the door.

She opened it just enough to see who was there; Arya stood before her, her face twisted impatiently and a full leather satchel slung across her body. Sansa moved back from the door and let her sister enter.

"You've redecorated," she observed. In truth Sansa hadn't changed much, she had asked the keeper of wardrobe to reupholster the chairs from brown to blue and had new curtains put in around the windows and bed. The only other addition was a large Stark banner she had embroidered herself which filled the wall between the windows. It had taken her nearly two full years to come to terms with changing her parents' former quarters, but she found it remarkably easier to sleep once she did.

Arya helped herself to the closer seat and put her bag on the table. She revealed two pewter chalices engraved with wolves and mountains, clearly stolen from the kitchen. _Maybe she asked for them_, Sansa tried to tell herself. To fill the vessels, Arya had also brought a large wineskin. She poured the glasses nearly to the brim and handed one to her older sister.

Sansa moved her previous seat closer to the table and sat between Arya and the fire.

"Should we really be drinking at this hour?"

"We're women grown waiting out a storm in the middle of the night. Why shouldn't we?" Sansa considered it and took the chalice in her hands.

They sat quietly for some time; the bellowing winds and crackling fire made up the only sounds in the room.

"I'm glad you're back," Sansa said as Arya reached over to top off her drink.

"As am I." She sat back in her chair before continuing quietly, "It's not easy to be here. At least before I was distracted - waiting for Jon's return, Littlefinger, preparing for the battle… now I just see their faces everywhere." Sansa understood. Even after all this time, she often saw Robb's auburn curls in the training yard or heard little Rickon's giggles when she passed by the room Old Nan once occupied.

She craned her neck to view her. Arya was staring at the direwolf emblazoned upon the wall, eyes wet and full but not spilling. Sansa reached out and squeezed her sister's hand. Rough as ever, she mused; Septa Mordane would be mortified.

"You know, you can at least do one of those things still." Arya turned to face her in confusion. "I know you wanted to surprise me, even if it was a foolish idea. I wrote to Jon claiming I had an important issue to discuss and asked him to hurry here. The storm must have delayed him, but you'll get to surprise him when it subsides."

Arya's face lit up with a grin.

"Bran said he's a father!"

"Yes, to one little boy, Robb." Sansa felt her throat tighten with the name and knew her sister's was likely the same. "If he weren't so damn happy north of the Wall I'd have legitimized him by now," she admitted. "I'd like at least one of us to pass on the Stark name, and it doesn't look promising for the rest of us."

Arya looked away, focusing on the glimmer of her wine instead of meeting Sansa's eye.

"You could still wed," she said after a moment. "I'm sure there are plenty of eligible Northern lords who would love to marry the Queen in the North." She could, yes, but she would not.

"I have no intention of marrying again."

It was obvious that Arya wanted to respond, and Sansa already knew what she was thinking. As a girl she had spoken constantly of her future as a lady wife or princess; she had even ignored Joffrey's early cruelty to continue the delusion.

"Speaking of which -"

"Don't." Arya's voice had a tinge of warning; they both sipped their wine while Sansa did her best to honor her sister's request.

"It's just, you went there first. Before Winterfell."

"Sansa." That warning tone was sharper now, as fierce as the winds pummeling the window. "How do you know about that anyway?"

"Everyone knows, Arya. Lady Fallyse wrote me. I'm sure you don't remember her, but she was about my age when we were in King's Landing - she married a son of House Wagstaff and frequents Storm's End. She was there that night. She reports you stared at one another the entire feast and then nearly had each other under the table at the morning meal the next day."

"That's ridiculous."

"They're saying you used some poison to seduce him and keep him locked him in his room for a whole week." Arya sighed loudly.

"It wasn't a week, it was three days. And he was the one who insisted we stay in his chambers. I didn't poison him!"  
Sansa laughed loudly in a way that was certainly not becoming of a queen.

"Was it any good?"

Arya looked at her incredulously. "Are you really asking me that?"

"We're women grown waiting out a storm in the middle of the night," Sansa mocked.

"I'm going to need more wine for this." She uncorked the wineskin and refilled their chalices. Sansa's mind was already lightened by the drink, but she accepted it without protest. Arbor Gold was her wine of choice - she preferred things light and sweet - but the Dornish red her sister had brought did just fine.

"So?" Sansa asked again after taking another long sip.

Arya bit back a smile and rolled her eyes. "It's always been good," she said with a suggestive tilt of her head. "But this was… entirely worth the wait." Sansa didn't ask if the 'wait' she referred to was her years at sea or however long she had been in Storm's End before doing the deed, something else stood out to her.

"Always?" She repeated. Her sister met her gaze and raised her brows while drinking from her glass without looking away. "Arya!" Maybe it was the drink, or maybe it was the shock of knowing her sister had lain with a man while the rest of them were miserable about Jon's sentence, but her voice rang out as it had in these very halls over a decade ago. "King's Landing? He did look quite handsome in the dragon pit." That would make sense. Sansa had noticed something between them in the days leading up to the Battle for Winterfell, prolonged eye contact charged with something she could only describe as unrestrained lust, softer glances when the other wasn't looking, a tendency to stand within the same vicinity at every gathering… _And then there was that once_ -

"The night before our battle with the dead," Arya said with a nostalgic smirk. "At least, that was the first time."

"He wasn't even a lord then," Sansa thought aloud. Her sister had always been strange, but sleeping with a lowborn blacksmith was surprising even for her. "I still don't understand why you went to him before me. You could have at least written."

Arya again looked into her wine like the memory shamed her.

"I wasn't going to, really. But Bran told me about how he had helped during the rebellion, and then Ser Brienne kept talking about how much the Stormlands were benefitting from him. I figured a two day sail would be worth it to just make sure he was alright." Her voice drifted off at the end of the sentence, as though she hadn't even managed to convince herself it was the truth.

Sansa drank again and looked towards the fire. The flames danced across the logs as they burned, deceptively appearing to exist in harmony as though they were not the cause of their demise.

"Do you love him?" Her chalice was nearly empty again.

She had expected Arya to immediately respond with a horrified "No!" or mayhap an explanation of how she had no interest in committing herself to any one man. Instead she just twisted the cup to swirl her wine and focused her eyes on something beyond the window.

"Arya?" Sansa asked again, more softly this time.

"I… I don't know." She drained her wine and looked to her older sister again before refilling their glasses. "But I don't want to stab him as much as everyone else." They laughed more than was necessary, both well into their cups. For Arya, that was as good as they were going to get. Her sister was in love - not in the whimsical love Sansa thought she experienced when she had seen Joffrey enter the gates of Winterfell, but genuine love. What a strange place this world was.

They somehow managed to finish the entire wineskin - a decision Sansa would regret in the morning, though Arya would somehow awaken unaffected. The Queen in the North told of the ridiculous proposals she had received, ladies she couldn't stand, her fears about the cost of this storm, and anything else that came to mind as the wine's grip strengthened. Arya listened, laughed, and told a few humorous stories of her endeavors in the West. It struck Sansa that this may be the closest the sisters had ever been; even the time at Winterfell before Jon's arrival with Daenerys had consisted mostly of surface-level observations peppered with occasional tears for their fallen family. Once the wine was gone and they both struggled to form a sentence without bursting into laughter, Arya curled up at the foot of Sansa's bed and slept until the Queen's handmaidens came to start the day a few hours later.

The storm cleanup took two full days. The palisades were miraculously the only area that needed major repairs; the rest of the work was mainly ice-chipping and ploughing. Arya's companions were surprisingly helpful with the clean up - two of them had been raised in a land they claimed was just as harsh as the North and seemed impervious to the cold despite not wearing gloves. The other lent a hand as well, though the poor thing shivered through her thick cloak so badly that her teeth still chattered even after she had been taken inside and given stew and tea.

On the second day of cleanup, eight days after Arya's arrival, a raven arrived from Storm's End.

Sansa kept her face steady although her mind raced as Maester Wolkan informed her of its arrival. Was Arya receiving love letters? She considered opening it for her - one could not blame the Queen in the North for wanting to be aware of the messages arriving in her kingdom, but she decided against it. "It's likely for my sister," she said to the maester. They had a servant fetch her so she might open it and share its contents.

Something had changed between the two of them with that wine. She was no longer a dangerous and mysterious figure in the shadows; Sansa could now see her as Arya Stark, an odd but wonderful sister. A tiny glimmer of awkwardness glimmered beneath her cool exterior as she heard she had received news from Gendry. Sansa smirked at the grey eyes flickering back to the scroll when their owner thought no one noticed. She read it in silence.

"Nothing of note, Bran has called a council of the lords again two full moons from now." The Queen thanked the Maester and dismissed him, then turned to Arya.

"Is that really all it says?" Arya nodded, but Sansa was skeptical. She snatched it from her sister's hands.

_Arya,_

_King Bran has called for the lords to meet again in King's Landing. We're set to arrive by the second full moon, though I may go earlier to speak with Davos. I will write again if more information becomes available. _

_May the Kingdom of the North be good to you and your family._

_Gendry _

"He's quite boring," Sansa complained. "If you're going to be together he should be addressing you as his dearest or beloved - at least close the letter speaking about how he misses waking up beside you." Arya wrinkled her nose at the thought.

"We're not together, Sansa. And if we ever were and he wrote to me like that, we wouldn't be together long." Sansa sighed - her sister was determined not to let her live out her childhood fantasies of courtship.

The scribbled scroll from Gendry was not the only arrival of note that day. Jon entered the main gate, trudging through the snow on an exhausted looking horse with a thick mane that covered most of its sight. Tormund was close behind him, but Sansa was disappointed to see they had not brought Robb.

"What's going on?" Jon asked after embracing her briefly. She struggled to keep the glimmer from her eyes as she saw Arya slowly approach him from behind. "Little Nightsbane!" Tormund hollered. He had taken to calling her that after the Battle for Winterfell and was utterly unaware that he had spoiled the surprise.

Jon turned in confusion; Sansa wished she could see the excitement she knew lit across his face, but was content instead with laughing back tears of joy at the way he scooped their sister up in a massive hug that lifted her from the ground.

"I was promised a nephew," Arya said, scanning behind Jon in case she had somehow missed the child.

"I don't bring him with when I think there might be a war waging." Jon turned to Sansa. "Was this the important discussion?" She smiled at them both and nodded.

"When did you get back?"

"Not long ago. I got to Winterfell just before the storm."

"How long are you staying? Are you back for good?"

She smiled - a real smile, not the hollow excuse Sansa knew she would have given before she left had she been asked the same question. "I don't know yet."

.

.

.

**Jon**

It had been only two weeks since arriving at Winterfell and already Jon desperately missed his family. He had left Ghost with them, and Val was enough of a danger on her own that that hadn't really been necessary. Truly all they had to worry about was Robb's endless energy, and Jon knew she could handle it with ease.

He was going through the Armory with Arya after Sansa had asked them to inspect it in case the newly acquired master of arms had missed anything. Arya had noted that a few arrows were too curved - they were likely overworking their fletchers - and some of the swords had hilts that extended too short to get a decent stop, but overall things looked fine. Arya's three friends sat outside of the room, laughing with Tormund about something crude. Jon liked them well enough, though one of them had been mildly disrespectful about his decision to leave Ghost north of the Wall, but was grateful for a few minutes of quiet with his sister.

The stories she told him of the land to the west were fascinating - a world that somehow balanced relative peace with respect for skill with a blade, islands ruled by women with multiple husbands, massive bears described to be so large that he was sure she was exaggerating. As interesting as he tales were, Jon was mostly glad to see his sister was happy.

They had never discussed what happened in the time between his departure for the Night's Watch and her unexpected arrival at their childhood home while he was deep in the midst of negotiations on Dragonstone, but Jon knew it must have been difficult. His own journey hadn't been easy - the scar over his heart could attest to that - but at least he still… felt. The Arya who he saw leading up to the Battle for Winterfell was a scarred frame of a person - smiles never reached her eyes, she didn't so much as blink at the sight of gruesome death, and she seemed magnetically repulsed from any celebration or gathering beyond their small family or matters of war. The woman before him seemed utterly changed, perhaps more Arya than the person who first sailed west.

"I can't believe you still wear it," he said as she moved Needle aside with her knee to bend and inspect the rivet of a shield.

She looked up and smiled but didn't bother saying anything in response - they had talked about her attachment to his gift many times.

Maester Wolkan soon arrived with news. "Lady Stark, another raven from Storm's End for you."

"The Stormlands?" John tried to think of who Arya would know there. "Davos?"

She shook her head and exited the Armory before correcting him, "Davos is in the capital serving as master of ships. This will be from Lord Baratheon." Gendry! So he had held on to his title after all. Jon smiled at the knowledge that at least one of the two bastards had emerged from the war with something to show for it.

Sansa was waiting for them within a small cabinet in the Great Keep.

Arya's brow furrowed further with each line of the scroll. She swallowed hard and handed it to Sansa, who raised a perfectly arched auburn brow at the contents before passing it to Jon.

_Arya,_

_Maester Forreal heard from his connections in the Reach. Bronn has begun calling his banners - they seem to stand behind their lord._

_The Stormlands have pledged 27,000 men to your brother, with another 5,000 in reserves, should we be of need. I am writing to Dorne to see if we might be able to build upon our Neutrality Agreement to find room for their support. _

_I will keep you abreast of any further news._

_Gendry_

Jon could hardly believe this had been written by the blacksmith who had once journeyed with him beyond the wall - it seemed so definitively lordly and unlike him. "What's he talking about? Who is Bronn?"

"Bran's master of coin," Arya started.

"A friend of Tyrion's. Untrustworthy," Sansa added, her voice pure ice. "It was discovered that he had unsurprisingly been using his position for selfish gain. Bran called for his arrest two moonturns ago."

"And he's lord paramount of the Reach?" The Queen in the North nodded.

"Their armies are large. If Lord Baratheon is right about their support it could mean as many as eighty or even one hundred thousand men. I will write to our uncle and cousin to see if they might spare a few thousand men to protect their King."

"They may already be on the road to their council meeting. We should send ravens to their outposts as well. How many men can the Crownlands rally?" Arya sounded nervous.

"Military strength hasn't been their priority - I'd wager fifteen to twenty thousand?"

"Let's say fifteen to be cautious. So, fifteen thousand from the Crownlands, twenty-seven thousand from the Stormlands, mayhap five thousand each from the Vale and the Riverlands? How many can the North spare?"

"The North is an independent kingdom; I cannot ask them to fight in a foreign war."

"Ask them to fight for your brother," Arya snarled.

"The Dornish armies are quite large. That could mean fifty thousand men fighting for Bran." Jon hoped that information might calm them.

"The Dornish lie," Sansa countered. "No one knows how large their armies really are. They might have half that."

"Surely Tyrion can convince the Westerlands to send their men - that'll make another twenty thousand."

"Still too few. That would make it even." Arya was nervous as she spoke. Her eyes stared at the scroll in Jon's hands as she palmed the handle of the strange blade on her thigh; he handed it back to her. "Write to our allies, if the North can spare the time." Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.

Arya did not attend dinner that night. Two of her companions, the beautiful quiet woman and the hostile man, sat at a table alone for just long enough to eat.

She found him on a battlement a few hours later. His mind had been replaying the turbulent last dozen years before being banished - remembering the nights on the Wall so cold he was amazed his balls were still attached to his body and replaying their reclamation of Winterfell from the Boltons - when she showed up beside him.

"There are 300 leagues between Highgarden and King's Landing. Assuming they have a supply train with them, it will take them about three months to reach Bran. The Reach has no shortage of food though, so they may not need one, which would cut their time by a third." Arya had always been good with figures, Jon remembered - it was satisfying to see her apply them to something useful like military strength. "Our journey south would be at least twenty days, more likely a moon's turn, and that's with good weather and sailing straight from White Harbor. I'd say we have just two fortnights to figure out how we can stop Bronn."

Jon sighed and ran a hand across his beard.

"Arya," he started, "I don't think you need to be this worried. Bran can see everything."

"Yara Greyjoy nearly got to him, and that was with just twenty thousand men. If the Dornish hadn't changed their allegiance…" Her point was valid. Jon remembered that well - he had arrived at White Harbor to sail to the capital and defend Bran the very day that the rebellion ended. Mayhap she wasn't wrong to worry about timing. Arya turned so her back was to the wall and slid down, her knees still bent and falling together.

"This was why I came back, you know." She inhaled a deep breath of cold air before continuing, "I just kept thinking 'What if something happens to Sansa? To Bran?' I kept having these dreams…" Jon knew she was replaying them as she spoke. "I couldn't live with myself if I was gallivanting across the West while they suffered."

Arya was a woman grown now, but still looked so small folded up into herself with worry for their family.

"But you made it back. You're here now."

"And that might not mean anything. I can't believe Sansa."

"She has to think for the North now, you know that."

"She's always been more Tully than Stark," Arya spat bitterly.

"Be kind to her - she's our sister. There's just as much Tully blood in you as in her. Sansa is the first recognized Queen in the North since Aegon the Conquerer."

"As much as in Bran, too, but she won't help him. Every time I think I know her, she does something like this."

Jon sank down to be eye-level with his little sister and put his gloved hand around her arm.

"She loves Bran just as you do - the same as she loves you or you love me. She's thinking as the Queen now and not as Sansa. It isn't easy." He knew that from experience - his own time as King had lasted less than a year before he bent the knee to the woman who would go on to die from his own hand. The memory still stung.

Arya bit her lip slightly and looked away. They had always been of one mind, she and Jon; now she was wrestling the same doubts he had four years ago. He could only hope that she would trust Sansa faster than he did.

.  
.

Nine days after the arrival of Gendry's raven, Sansa came to Jon and Arya while in the yard training with half a dozen other fighters.

Arya was no longer avoiding her, but Jon still saw resentment push through her eyes when the three of them designed their plan. They still hadn't come up with anything solid - Jon wasn't sure what they were adding to the situation at all besides two decent fighters and some weapons, but Arya insisted on their duty to keep Bran safe. The best they had come up with was to head south and wait in the capital with troops for Bronn's inevitable attack. Jon was convinced they didn't need the number of men Arya thought they would, but she refused to listen.

"I need a word," Sansa said sharply after they had finished their round. Arya was practicing with a fascinating double-bladed quarter staff that had been beautifully decorated with a wolf's head in the center. The two sides separated into single-handed weapons that she spun and slashed with ease. He needed to ask where she had gotten it - did it hail from afar, or had she commissioned it in Westeros?

They both nodded and followed her towards the Armory. It was a strange place for Sansa to meet with them, but it seemed fitting amongst discussions of war.

"We've received more news." Her tone worried him. "From a new source," she added, pausing to turn her cool blue eyes upon Arya. "Dorne has pledged support to Ser Bronn."

In his periphery, Arya stopped as though someone had placed a wall in her path.

Jon turned to see what she had paused for. Her expression was mostly blank, but he thought he saw the heavy pull of guilt in her firmly set mouth and unblinking eyes. If he could have seen his face while awaiting his fate in the quickly constructed dungeons of King's Landing, he was certain it would have looked similar. Only, Arya hadn't killed a queen or taken the life of the woman she loved. He wondered if she had stopped in Dorne during her travels; perhaps she took this personally because she expected loyalty from someone close to her, or mayhap she had made enemies she thought influenced their decision.

"I'm not surprised, they were set to rally behind Yara before the Stormlands intervened." Sansa had started them towards the Armory again.

Arya joined them with fast strides so she could keep up with their conversation. "We should leave sooner rather than later," she said.

Sansa leaned her hands upon an unfinished wooden table in the center of the building and sighed lightly. "Timing is less important than being thoroughly prepared. We still have much time before the earliest Bronn could possibly come from Highgarden, and that doesn't account for the time it will take him to ensure support."

"Highgarden, aye, but Sunspear is five days by ship with a generous wind. If they put their armies behind their support today, we would never make it in time, and that raven must have taken a day or two to get here as is. We're two thousand miles away with too few men." She glared at Sansa accusingly.

"I know you think the North ought to involve ourselves in this because Bran is one of us, and that's why I've decided to leave it to the lords. I've written to each of them asking them to send men to protect the first Stark king in the South if they are so inclined. I can't promise anything, but the lords remember Bran fondly - I think you'll get at least ten thousand troops, possibly double." Arya turned her face to her sister, her eyes gleaming with gratitude. "I will also fund the costs of your journey. There isn't time for new armor to be made, but we will provide as much coin, steel, grain, and wool as we can afford to. I've written to Lord Manderly to prepare to load your ship with provisions there so that you might not slow your time on the road. Once I know who the lords will send, I'll let you know how many more men to count on."

Jon thanked her profusely.

"If you can wait another day, I'd like to send a team of horses to plough the road to White Harbor. It should take some time off of your journey." Arya conceded with a nod.

None of them slept that night, instead preparing everything they could possibly need. Sansa watched them from the armory as if she were joining them. Arya's friends would come with them - the smaller woman, Yuisaraq, was an expert sailor and could take their ship from White Harbor to the capital, and all three were sufficient fighters.

The uncertainly on the length of their time in King's Landing made things more complicated. Should they ask Lord Manderly to provide enough food for a single moon's turn? For three? Would they need additional swords and shields for any soldiers sent from the North, or would they have enough to spare?

The ploughing team had been sent immediately after their conversation with Sansa, putting at least a day between their departures. Jon sent Tormund to update Val, Robb, and Ghost on his whereabouts. A sinking feeling in his heart weighed on him whenever he remembered that he was headed nearly seven hundred leagues farther from them.

Before the sun had set, the Queen in the North gifted them her five fastest horses and saw Jon, Arya, and the three foreigners off to do their best to fight whatever danger may await their brother.


	6. Chapter 6 - King's Landing II

_Chapter 6 - King's Landing II_

**Arya**

King's Landing seemed oddly normal as Jon rowed their small vessel ashore. Arya feared the worst when she spotted the various Dornish sigils hoisted high and bright along three massive ships in the harbor, but all seemed well for now. The identical rowboat holding Yuisaraq, Niiotha, and Palomai pulled up alongside them. Arya lept into the water and steadied herself before pulling the boats to the sandy beach. She was on the fourth day of her moonblood, and although the worst had passed, she still felt lightheaded when she jumped or ducked too fast.

They covered the boats beneath some shrubs of beach rose and bayberry and climbed a stone wall to make their way to the Keep.

Jon held up a hand to stop them and jutted his chin towards a row of men visible through a west-facing archway.

The light glinted off a dozen infantrymen in copper armour decorated with flashes of delicate gold and silver; their heads were wrapped with yellow or red scarves wound like serpents around their helmets. Dornish forces, she had no doubt. And they were headed straight for the castle.

This was was her own damn fault. If they had arrived earlier, they might have gotten to Bran before the streets filled with soldiers, and if she had kept her legs closed and not been selfish in Storm's End the Dornish might not be there at all.

Arya tried to tell herself that Dorne likely had their own motivations for joining the war. Bronn could have offered them independence or an alluring grain rate, or mayhap Gendry was just a poor negotiator; he might have offended them in his attempts to secure their support of Bran. _No more than we already offended House Dayne_, Arya thought bitterly.

They avoided the militiamen and entered the castle faster than she expected. It seemed the attack had only just launched - fewer than fifty men fought castle guards - the white cloaks and Crownlands armies had yet to arrive. The guards were visibly confused to see Jon, but made no move to stop them as they turned their attention to the striking troops. Palomai was likely the fastest of their group, so he split to scan the ground level for Bran while the others found White Swords to update themselves on the situation.

Their group moved through the keep with ease. The guards who would normally be posted throughout seemed to be missing from the halls; presumably helping to fight off the Dornish elsewhere. Arya searched for Ser Brienne or the kingsguard, but they were nowhere to be found.

Palomai rounded the corner. He hadn't seen a king anywhere.

They climbed to the second level and searched further; Niiotha and Yuisaraq headed for the third and fourth level, respectively.

A few men from the Reach had arrived within the walls, their brass plate metal distinctive among the attacking copper and defending silver. The new soldiers ran towards Arya, Jon, and Palomai. She spun her quarterstaff to impale one with minimal effort. Jon sliced heavily from the hip and shoulder, as always, and Palomai carried a bludgeoning weapon in one hand and a thick knife half the length of his forearm in the other.

Their fighting styles were limited by the size of the hallway and the presence of one another at their backs, but they got through the men well enough.

Despite Bran's changes to the Red Keep, Arya still felt trapped fighting within its halls again. She could nearly smell the bodies burning and hear the dragons roaring overhead.

Niiotha returned to them, panting lightly and hair matted with blood. Her dark eyes looked at them as though they were farther away than they were.

"Bran?" Jon shouted over the sound of clashing swords from around the bend.

She responded softly, "No."

"What is it?"

"A room of ambushed men. They never knew what was happening. I think the woman tried to fight, but the rest were taken by surprise." Arya didn't have time to ask what the men looked like or how they had been killed - a new wave of soldiers approached. This time the group of four lined the hall side-by-side and blocked their path.

Niiotha attacked first, throwing a hatchet before unclasping another from her leg to swing into a weak spot between the neck and shoulder of an oncoming man. Palomai had her guard and bashed the face of a soldier whose spear came too close to Niiotha's exposed thigh.

They panted after finishing the onslaught, only to hear a lone pair of sprinting feet behind them. As Arya turned, a knife flew from across the hall and lodged itself into the man's eye. She recognized the decorated bone handle instantly - Yuisaraq must have thrown it coming down the stairwell.

"Don't go up," her quiet voice called to them.

"If Bran's there, we have to." Jon wiped his sword of blood and moved forward.

"I saw no boy in circled chair. Just death… Dozens dead.""Soldiers?"

She looked to Arya with a deep sadness and bit her full lips into a thin line.

"I do not think yes. They dressed as high men with no armour and did not draw swords. Most died in their seat."

Jon grunted in frustration and leaned against the blood-soaked wall.

Something was wrong, and Arya couldn't quite figure out what. Clearly most of the castle had been surprised, but surely they would have already heard if the attackers were successful. She thought back to the battle against the dead and recalled Brain in the godswood staring back at the Night King as though he readily accepted his death.

"The throne room," she thought aloud as she remembered the Weirwood sapling. There was no time to wait for them to follow. Arya sprinted down the stairs and dodged two spears waiting to skewer her, then separated her staff and drove both pieces through small gaps in the soldiers' armour to gut them simultaneously.

The throne room was locked from the inside. She slammed herself into the doors.  
"Bran!" Jon shouted as he arrived and slammed himself shoulder-first into the wood. "It's Jon. We're coming for you."

Metal dragged upon the floor in a horrible scraping noise, and the door opened a crack. Podrick Payne's brown eyes stared back at them before letting them in. He lowered a thick oak crossbeam and propped up a heavy steel table to block the table.

"He's been like this since the morning." Pod gripped Jon's forearm in greeting and turned his head towards the weirwood tree. Bran sat in his chair, hand pressed against the feeble white trunk and eyes milky.

"We have a ship ready to sail to White Harbour. He'll be safe in the North."

"We _need_ to leave this place." Niiotha's voice shook slightly as she spoke. "Too many ambushes to sit around."

"You saw the council." Podrick's voice was hollow.

"Council?"

"They're gone - all of them. Every advisor to the King and every lord Paramount… Throats slit before they knew what was happening."

Arya's heart dropped into her stomach. Every lord paramount. It couldn't be true. Hot tears stabbed her eyes like needles and blurred her vision, she wanted to vomit. She knew now how Meryn Trant had felt in his final breaths - broken, guilty, and blind.

Niiotha moved to her side and steadied her with a hand to the center of her back; she knew what this meant as much as Arya did. Arya tried to breathe, tried not to picture Gendry's last moments - his blood gurgling through his mouth and opened throat. She had done that to enough men to be intimately familiar with the process.

"And Ser Brienne?"

Podrick faced Jon as tears escaped his eyes in uneven trails. He shook his head sadly. Jon swallowed and nodded, clapping his hand onto Pod's shoulder in sympathy, his own eyes threatening to spill. Arya knew he must be thinking of Samwell Tarly and Ser Davos.

"Let's go," Palomai said gruffly.

Arya's feet refused to move. What if Gendry wasn't dead? She could picture him up there somewhere, lying in a pool of his own blood as the world spun around him. A throat slit lazily wasn't necessarily lethal, and it was possible the attackers had moved for speed and not effectiveness - maybe they had just gotten the first layer and not anything important.

"Change of plans. Give me that," she said firmly while eyeing Niiotha's large bag. The woman's brows furrowed at her demand.

"You need me for that." She knew exactly what Arya was going to try to do.

"I need you with my brother." Niiotha's eyes were the color of walnut wood soaked in water, so brown they were nearly black; they stared at her skeptically, then darted to watch Jon scoop Bran's body from his chair. She sighed and looked back to Arya unhappily.

"Fine. But give me that so I know you'll come back." Arya handed her the quarterstaff and took the bag once Niiotha had removed a few smaller pouches from within it.

Jon hoisted Bran onto his back and fastened his hands with the tie of his cloak.

"Find a better way to cover him," Arya said at the obvious protrusion of Bran's spindly legs - the youngest Stark was taller than Jon was now and would be difficult to conceal.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I have to know." She looked to Niiotha again. "Get them to the shore. If I don't find you there, don't wait. I'll take the first ship to meet you at White Harbor."

"Arya!"

She faced her brother and inhaled sharply. "Keep Bran safe. I'll find you, I promise." She turned to Podrick. "Will you take them?"

He paused in deliberation, then shook his head. "I need to get Ser Brienne's body out of here." That was fair, war did cruel things to corpses and women alike - Arya didn't want to think about what they would do to both in one.

Jon opened his mouth to object again, but she was already running from the room.

She had to find Gendry, she had to know that he was really gone. It was delusional - most of her already knew he was dead - but she wouldn't believe it until she saw his corpse. Podrick ran behind her and they ascended the stairs to behold the horrors with their own eyes.

.

.

.

**Jon**

The streets were too full to sneak back to the ship easily, especially with Bran on his back covered with a massive woven blanket pilfered by Arya's friends pinned as a cloak. Their ship was anchored between a cluster of massive rocks just on the northernmost section of the bay, and the rowboats they were to take back were well hidden.

They were only a few minutes from the shore now; glimmering ocean and dark grey sands peeked out between openings and windows.

This was still better than the last time he had been in the city, when Daenerys and her armies had burned, raped, and killed without discretion, or when he was brought from his cell into the blinding sun of the capital to be banished north. The punishment had seemed odd at the time, but Jon was grateful for it now, if only because it led him to his new family. He missed them dearly - what he wouldn't give to hold his son and pet Ghost in the snowy North right now.

Bran hung strangely motionless in his arms, still deep in whatever trance or dream caused that white coating over his eyes. None of the rest knew King's Landing particularly well, so they looked for any path that would get them to the sea with the least exposure. A high stone archway began a narrow corridor that seemed to lead to the sea.

Jon turned down it, Yuisaraq by his side, Palomai leading, and Niiotha guarding their back.

"We're being followed," the woman in the rear whispered through her teeth. "I'll deal with it." Jon turned to see what she was talking about - the alley was empty. A cloaked figure stepped out from a smaller side corridor to their right and blocked their path.

"Wait!" The figure shouted, holding up a hand with bizarrely short fingers as he fumbled to remove the cloak before Palomai could smash his head in. Jon was too focused on clutching Bran to his back to be of any use with a sword.

The hood fell to reveal Davos Seaworth.

Jon breathed a sigh of release and nodded for the foreigners to stand down.

"I'm not sure it's a good idea for you to be seen here, but I'm glad to see ya." He went to embrace Jon in a single-armed hug but stopped when his hand hit Bran's back. Davos' mouth twisted with confusion and he ducked under the blanket to see what was going on.

"Awfully risky transport method. Where ya headed?"

"Some rowboats on the northernmost point of the beaches." The Onion Knight nodded and flipped his hood back up to hide his identity before they continued forward.

"Podrick said the councils were attacked..." he couldn't bring himself to finish and confirm the thought screaming through his mind. The idea of Sam lying dead was too painful.

"Aye. I'm not sure how I managed to get out. It was awful." Jon didn't ask for details. Davos had somehow survived the Battle of the Bastards, the Battle of the Blackwater, and the Battle of Winterfell - mayhap he was just impossible to kill.

"Where is Lady Stark?" Davos asked. "I presumed she was with you when I saw these three." He nodded politely at them as he asked. So Davos knew Arya's foreign friends; he must have met them when she visited Bran upon her return, Jon presumed.

Where the hell was she? He had no way to answer Davos when he hadn't the slightest clue himself. She had just sprinted off claiming there was a change of plans and demanding Niiotha's supplies, even at the expense of her quarterstaff.

"She had something to do," the woman holding that staff said. Jon was sure she knew more than he did.

"We won't wait for her," Palomai added.

"If she isn't here by the time we reach the ship, we'll wait at White Harbor." He wasn't abandoning his little sister - he didn't care what she might claim to want.

Jon looked to the older man as they walked; his question about Sam remained trapped in his mouth no matter how many times he opened his lips to ask. Davos saw the look on his face and knew instantly.

"The archmaester was bringin' his new daughter to Horn Hill to meet his lady mother and sister." Sam had a new daughter?

Jon's feet moved faster with the knowledge that Sam was safe. A crumbling staircase overrun with fragrant roses and winding ivy descended onto the beach. They dragged the boats out and carefully placed Bran into one, then pushed them both far enough into the water to hop in once the keel left the sand.

Arya was not on the beaches, and he stopped to stare at the horizon as he waited.

"Go," Niiotha urged firmly. He nodded and rowed the boat with Davos and Bran; Niiotha smacked Palomai's hand away so she could manage theirs.

They made good time to the ship. Yuisaraq climbed up the rope ladder first to hoist the sails and the rest followed.

Again, Jon wanted to wait for his sister, but the foreigners would hear no further argument. Palomai turned a massive windlass to raise the anchor the the first good gust of wind set them off.

.

.

.

**Gendry**:

For the second time in his life, Gendry somehow found himself running through the Red Keep, hammer in hand, looking for the King.

Men in elaborately decorated armour ran through the halls, the gold detailing upon their copper-plated arms contrasting brilliantly against the dull silver of the Crownlands soldiers they fought.

He didn't know specifically when the Dornish forces had breached the castle; three vessels had appeared in Blackwater Bay the night before, two flying the Martell sigil and one displaying the purple flag of House Dayne. He and Davos immediately made plans to go down to their ship the next afternoon to speak in person. Gendry prepared for the meeting knowing precisely what he would have to do - he'd be following through with his betrothal to Lucynda Dayne to win their favor. He had even mentioned it in his first letter to the southernmost kingdom. _We ought to begin marriage preparations before the next full moon_, he'd suggested in his scrolls to Houses Dayne and Martell when requesting their support for King Bran.

How absurdly arrogant of him to think the prospect of his hand would be enough to stop an entire war.

Dorne's response was not kind; their scroll was so venomous that Gendry had worried the pages or ink may actually have been soaked in some slow-acting poison that would kill him upon reading. _A clear absence of honor and incapacity to show loyalty_, was one sentence that still burned through his mind. _Unfathomable disrespect intentionally displayed towards House Dayne_, was another.

He hadn't meant to offend them, but intentions were irrelevant.

Dorne never explicitly mentioned his days with Arya, but there was nothing else Gendry could think of that would have made them so loathsome. Their anger with him made little sense - surely a kingdom that regularly made a show of their sexuality and flexible moral code would take no issue with her visit. But it wasn't just a visit, he reminded himself bitterly. He had been an absolute fool and locked himself in with her for days, even assuring her it would be fine when she brought up this very scenario. He was a lovestruck mess while she inhabited Storm's End, hypnotized by her kiss and addicted to the feeling of waking with her in his arms. It had been like some idiotic fantasy of the two of them running the Stormlands together - she easily balanced his sums and suggested new duties and tax methods, the maester brought them scrolls from the capital to read together, and they dined in his chambers each night. Now they were back in reality. She was off with her sister in their independent kingdom thousands of miles away, his memory distant and far from her mind, while he tried to find and protect her brother.

He opened the door to another room in the Keep - still empty. Where was the King?

At least Gendry could be fairly certain Bran hadn't been in the small council, surely he'd have seen tracks from his chair or body dragged through the blood.

That room had been horrific. The entire council was dead and it seemed not one advisor had anticipated the attack. Tyrion Lannister's small corpse was still stooped at the head of the table, three crossbow bolts pierced through his chest. Other lords Gendry only saw at occasional feasts - Alwynn Plumm, master of whispers, and Lord Fossoway, the master of laws from Bronn's own territory - had both been slumped back in their chairs with their open throats exposed to the world. Devastatingly, Ser Brienne's body lay face down in a pool of her own blood before the door; he did not want to know if it had been a crossbow, blade, or combination of both that took her life. Davos' body wasn't in the room, but that didn't mean he was alive. The bloody footsteps unevenly stumbling into the corridor may have been his, but so many more feet had stomped over them that he couldn't possibly have gotten far.

More steel-clad soldiers of the Crownlands sprinted past Gendry and broke him from his thoughts. He saw Podrick Payne behind them, not fighting with the group but looking for something just as he was - perhaps he was searching for the King as well.

Gendry crossed the hall to approach him.

"Nothing," Podrick shouted around the corner behind him. He caught Gendry's eye and burst into a relieved looking smile. "Where was the grand council meeting? We're trying to find it to figure out exactly how bad this is."

A spear flew by them and Gendry decided they had best step into the room to their left. Podrick entered too and looked over his shoulder before pulling the door shut

"Yesterday's council meeting was in the largest cabinet on the fourth level. I'm less sure about today but don't see why they'd change it." Gendry propped the door on his side of the room closed with a massive writing desk in case anyone came after them.

"You weren't there?"

"Skipped it to prepare for a meeting with the Daynes and Martells."

"Clearly that went well." They both laughed dryly as though death wasn't flowing through the hallway they had just escaped. Gendry opened his mouth to tell him the meeting hadn't happened at all, but a voice rang out from the hall.

"Nothing this whole level." No, that wasn't possible - that voice wasn't anywhere near King's Landing. The other door burst open and sure enough Arya was breathing heavily as though she had just run through every room on this floor. The blood splattered across her cheek and temple made a strikingly flattering pattern and more was smeared and dried upon her chest; none of it seemed to be hers.

She saw him and stopped in her tracks. The steel eyes he hadn't stopped picturing since she left his chambers three moonturns before widened and her lips parted in disbelief. She crossed the distance between them in seconds and wrapped her arms around him in a surprisingly desperate embrace; he let himself do the same and brought one hand to the back of her head to press her against his chest. "What are you doing here?" He asked when he realized how little sense everything was making.

"She and Jon are bringing Bran north," Podrick answered for her. _Jon is here?_

Gendry turned to face the knight so he might ask, but Arya pulled his face down and kissed him. He never thought he would oppose her lips on his, but people were dying outside the walls - surely they could do this later. He savored it and kissed her back for too short a moment, then forced himself to pull away. Podrick's brows rose so high they nearly reached his hairline; he softened his face with understanding after a second, eyes shifting as though they were solving a tavern puzzle.

"They said everyone on the council was killed." Arya's hands were still on his face.

"Small council," he corrected, bringing his right hand to lightly hold her wrist.

"Both," Podrick said softly. The weight of losing of Brienne was clear in his voice.

Both? Had Bronn somehow killed every lord in attendance? That didn't seem possible. Gendry thought of the two other Stormlanders who would have been cut down - Mylon Tarth and Terrell Fell, both good men.

"Well Bran isn't in the higher levels, he must be lower," he said, trying to distract himself.

"He should nearly be to the ship." _What ship?_

"We might be able to meet them if we go now. If not they'll be waiting for us in White Harbor." Arya stepped away from him finally; he likely would have wished she hadn't if he weren't so bloody confused.

"You have Bran?"

Arya closed her eyes in irritation with how slowly his brain put together the pieces. "Yes, and we're going to have to sail ourselves to the North if we don't leave _now_." That was a journey he hadn't planned for, but it wasn't as though he could stay in the capital.

"I - I need to see to Ser Brienne's remains." Podrick's voice was thick with tears. "I'll find my way to the North as soon as I can. You remember where the boats are?" '

"The staircase between a butcher and whores," Arya said instantly. He nodded and exited the room to run back down the hallway.

Gendry looked down at Arya. He didn't understand why she was in the Keep mid-attack rather than heading north with her brothers. Her eyes stared back at him and seemed wetter than usual.

She kissed him again. For a moment he forgot everything. Her hand was gentle on his face and he needed her closer. His head emptied itself of any reason, swept south with all of his blood the moment her tongue swept over his. Gendry's hand found the curve of her hip and slid back to push her against him.

A terrible scream in the hall brought them back to reality. They stepped apart, both flushed with shame and an obvious need they'd ignore as long as they had to. Seven hells, something was fucking wrong with him. People were being cut down right beyond the door, there was a war waging, the other lords had been killed, _Davos was dead_, and here he stood thinking with his cock.

"I'm glad you weren't there." He couldn't look at her while she said it, not while her lips were likely beginning to swell and the blood on her face perfectly complimented the shape of her cheeks.

"We've got to get to that ship" he said, grabbing his hammer and making for the door.

They got through the hall easily enough and descended a side stairwell to get to the ground floor. A spear flew at him - he knocked it aside with a lazy swing of his hammer. Four Dornish soldiers moved forward to attack them, but Arya stepped between them and took them down in the fastest series of slices and graceful spins he had ever seen. She wielded both daggers, papalteq in her right and Valyrian steel in her left. Gendry felt the sides of his mouth push down in surprised approval and they hurried down the hall.

The gates weren't an option - the closer they got the more soldiers poured in. Whatever softness Arya had shown him in her kiss was los; she now moved with the fearsome, automatic direction of a warrior. They sliced and smashed their way to a room with large window close enough to the ground to be a better option than the main entrance.

A metal door too large for its frame scraped across the stone floor with a screech vaguely reminiscent of the dragons that soared overhead on his journey north. Arya froze behind him and he reached out to grab her shoulder to urge her forward.

She whirled back and careened her blade towards his throat. It was easy enough to deflect - a simple outward push of his forearm moved it from his path before either realized what had just happened. The dagger clattered to the floor as Arya opened her hand to drop it and stared at him wide-eyed with shame at her own mistake. Gendry tried not to take it personally. He knew what had just occurred. Soldiers shocked from war were not new to him; hell, he still had his own moments when he nearly killed anyone who had the displeasure of waking him from dreams of wights pouring over the walls of Winterfell. Still, Arya had always seemed beyond the limitations of normal minds - to realize hers was scarred by the burning of King's Landing tore at his heart.

He slowly bent down to pick up the dagger and handed it back to her. She avoided his eye and took it shakily before heading to the window and climbing up onto the sill to leap down.

The window was too low for him to easily squeeze beneath. Even Arya had to shift strangely to get through it; her hip made a strange grinding noise like scraping pebbles when she bent and twisted her lower body. Gendry stood nearly a foot taller than her, and had to wriggle awkwardly on his stomach, then turn around and slip out feet-first to the ground. Arya bounced on the balls of her feet impatiently as she waited for him to escape the small opening.

Once they had made it out of the castle, they cut through enough soldiers coming through the gate to push their way into the city. The streets were worse than the castle - a flurry of arrows, some of them burning, and spears stormed amidst the clashing of swords and grunts of men bringing and succumbing to death.

They ran as though their very lives depended upon it, as fast as wind whipped through trees before a strike of lightning.

Twice arrows came too close for comfort. The first hit so close that it lodged into Gendry's satchel - he'd have been impaled had he shifted it or lowered his torso at all. The other terrified him more, narrowly missing Arya's head and instead flying into the end of her braid as it trailed the air behind her.

His lungs burned and his feet began to stumble on every lopsided cobblestone and loose pebble, but Arya did not slow and so neither could he.

The buildings of King's Landing became more mercantile the farther they fled from the castle. A few more minutes of running as fast as his legs would allow and Gendry finally saw a small opening between a butchershop and a structure with the distinctive red door of a brothel - this was where Podrick had told them they'd find the ships. They turned east and charged forward to the beach. Gendry finally came to a stop. There was no point in running anymore with what waited for them. He knew Arya saw it too; she ran forward still, as though it might be some trick that she could push through. Black smoke billowed along the bay from ships still aflame. Someone - Bronn, Dorne, or perhaps some other adversary they hadn't considered - had burned every last one.

Arya ignored all of it and moved forward despite the smoke and ongoing attack. Gendry shouted her name in an effort to get her to stop - she was being dangerously reckless. He hadn't just narrowly avoided death to for her to die in front of him and make him wish he hadn't. Finally her legs slowed and she stopped only long enough to sink her knees into the hot, blackened sand. He approached her cautiously, worried about startling her like he had in the Keep. He remained far enough to not touch her, but close enough to pull her from any stray weapon that might make its way towards them. Total devastation washed over her face at the scene before them.

Gendry stood by her side, shifting uneasily, anxious that a damn arrow or some stealthy attacker might pierce the smoke and end one of them. Arya's left hand clutched the back of his calf as she stared out at the bay; he squeezed her shoulder lightly in return. Absurdly, his heart skipped a beat when she covered his hand with her own and leaned her weight upon his leg.

After another minute or two, Arya shifted her weight away from him and stood. She nodded at no one in particular; her face was blank again and her tears had dried. He knew that expression - it was the same she made when he woke for the battle against the dead, the exact way she looked when he first confronted her about her plan to sail west. Gendry pulled her into him and pressed his face to her hair.

"They got out before this," he whispered into the start of her braid. He had no fucking idea if they did - how could he? But there was no way he would let her shrink back into whatever that emotionless shell was that she had only just shed, so he said it anyways. It had taken them long enough to get around the forces at the castle, and who knew how long she had been looking for him to begin with; maybe their ship had made it. Arya brought her hands to clutch the leather of his jerkin and everything faded from around them. There was no roar of violence from the city, no foul smoke choking his lungs and blinding his eyes, no stifling heat from ships aflame; it was just the two of them standing alone on that beach.

"I'm sorry about Davos," Arya said softly against his shoulder. They were her first words since the Keep. He closed his eyes at the sting of tears and tried not to think about what he would do without the man who had been the only father he'd ever known.

Arya dropped her arms but did not step away.

"I've got to go after them."

Of course she did. She once stabbed a damned immortal ice being to keep her family safe - some burning ships couldn't stop her now.

There was a series of tunnels through the sea fauna to the south that would lead to the kingsroad, or at least there had been before Daenerys' burning.

He told her as much and she looked up at him, finally moving back to separate their bodies entirely.

"You're not coming with me." Arya's voice was firm but sad - he knew she wanted him to join her despite it.

"I chose not to follow you north once, I'm not making that mistake again." She swallowed hard and looked to the fires dotting the sea.

"You can't… The Stormlands."

"Our troops haven't even arrived yet; they'll be in good hands under Lord Wylde's leadership. I trust Pylon to do his duty as steward until I return." Arya eyed him skeptically - she thought he was making the wrong decision. He took her hands into his and her face softened slightly.

"The Stormlands survived Renly and Stannis, then years with no stable leader at all - they'll be okay without me for a few moons. Once we know Bran is safe, I'll ride south and handle things." Arya pursed her lips to consider it.

There wasn't time for her to go back and forth. He pulled her by the wrist through shrouds of smoke and towards the shrubs that hid tunnels to the road.

They had no horses, no maps, no food, but they had each other - they would figure the rest out as they went.


	7. Chapter 7 - The Kingsroad

_Chapter 7: The Kingsroad_

**Gendry **

"Are you sure it's a good idea to be up here?"

Gendry climbed to the top of a rocky hill where Arya sat against a tree rooted into the cliffside, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. Their horses were tied to a grove of trees below the hill, too spooked by the loud thunder to continue north. He sat by her side, not quite touching her, as they watched the storm roll over the plains. Lightning flashed in the clouds above, followed by a heavy rumble that echoed through the valley beneath them.

Arya didn't answer him. She pulled her legs closer to her chest and lowered her chin to rest upon her knees. She was thinking about Bran and Jon again. Gendry always knew when she was worrying about whether they had made it out of Blackwater Bay - she made a face identical to that she wore when she thought of her father on this same damn road years earlier. At least now he could distract her long enough for her to fall asleep rather than muttering that damn list all night.

Ideally, they would lie together because they both wanted it, not because it kept her mind off her family, but he accepted it readily if it kept her eyes dry and stopped her from shutting down. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, still as warmed when she rested her head against his shoulder as he had been the very first time.

There was still no word of Bran's survival, but no word of his death either. A number of rumours had reached them - Gendry's favourite was that the King had fled to Essos to hide in the brothels of Myr, where whores specialized in pleasing cripples. Others were less funny, like the one that had incensed Arya - "They're saying Jon killed Bran to add kinslaying to his crimes," she shouted, yanking their bags from Gendry's hands and putting them on the nearest horse to leave without stopping to sleep.

The stories always changed, but three things seemed certain: No one knew where Bran was, Bronn had claimed King's Landing (and thus Westeros) as his own, and Jon had been spotted in the capital.

Lightning forked against a hill in the distance in a striking image of the Trident. The thunder that followed immediately after reverberated through the rocks.

"That was close," he said to her. They had left their things and some firewood in a cave towards the bottom of the hill, and the rocks were growing slippery as fat rain droplets began to pour.

Arya remained wordless as she sighed and stood to make their way down.

Gendry checked the ropes of the horses once more - he wanted to bring them into the shelter rather than leave them in the rain, but it was too small - and patted them both lightly before joining her in the cave. She was striking her flint into a tinder box to start their fire when he entered.

He removed his wet clothes and spread them across the cave wall nearest the fire, cautious to leave enough room for Arya's as well. She smiled softly at the fact he was already only in his breeches and raised a brow.

"Just some dried venison and an apple left," he said as he rummaged through his satchel. Arya pulled her lips to the side.

"We should have three apples."

"I gave one each to the horses," Gendry admitted. There had been nowhere to change horses that day, and the forest floor offered only pine needles and a few hearty winter shrubs. Arya sighed and took the venison from him. It was dry and hard to chew, but it was food. If she had let them stop at an inn, they could have eaten a real meal and gotten something more substantial. Instead she had insisted they keep going, just as she had most of the journey, stopping only to switch their horses twice a day.

"We're going to have to stop overnight tomorrow," he told her. She wouldn't like it.

"No need to overnight, we can just refresh our food."

"We've only really slept six nights out of ten and eight, Arya." Dozing on their horses didn't count.

"And we're still not even to Darry."

He breathed deep and closed his eyes to stop himself from arguing. "We'll get there." The water cooled his throat and filled his stomach with anything other than the scraps of dried meat and apple half. Despite a lifetime of regularly going hungry, a few years of lordship had made his stomach weak and desperate for food. He turned to watch the rain falling in sheets from the sky outside. Some of it was beginning to collect in the mouth of the cave, no more than would reach his first knuckle, but still not ideal. He wished Arya had let them stop for supplies when they first left King's Landing; at least then they would have a wool blanket to hang at the entry for the wind and rain.

That day had been a blur - the massacre of the councils, Arya, the burning beach, and stealing horses from the first stable they found, then a full night and day of riding north before he convinced her to stop at an inn a mile from the road to determine their course and load up on food. He didn't count that night in his tally - they had made good use of the bed and walls of the inn but hadn't gotten more than an hour of actual sleep. Warmth tingled in his cock at the thought, how desperate she had been to get him out of his clothes and inside her, the way she kissed him like she still couldn't believe he was alive at all. The few other nights included more sleep than sex, but he still felt more rested after collapsing beside her than he did when they laid down only to rest.

Gendry turned to look at her. She was seated with her legs extended towards the fire, eyes lit orange and red by the flames. They flickered their light upon her face, highlighting her features and dulling the pain from her eyes. Arya was the most beautiful, perfect person he had ever known. He no longer held even a shadow of doubt that he was entirely, hopelessly in love with her - truly he wasn't sure he had ever stopped.

"You should let those dry," he said, nodding towards the damp clothing she still wore. She shrugged and tossed the apple core into the fire, then prodded the logs with a long stick.

After a few minutes she looked him over as though he had spoken again, then did as he had suggested, removing her small clothes with her leathers and linens until she was as naked as her name day. Arya walked towards him and eyed him hungrily, like she hadn't just been near tears on the hill. This was a distraction, Gendry knew, but he would fill the role happily if it meant she wanted him.

She straddled him and ran a hand through his hair. Gendry was never any good at waiting. He impatiently captured her lips with his own, pressing his hands hard against her hips to grind her on his length through his breeches. Her kisses were rough and needy, like the mere days they had gone without this had been a lifetime. She untied his breeches from memory, and kissed her way down to them to take him into her mouth. They hadn't done this before she sailed west, but she had done the same twice in Storm's End and he loved every second of her mouth and hands working at him like a woman starved. After a particularly good twist of her tongue, he pulled away. He moved to do the same for her but she pushed him back down and lowered herself onto him, already wet and welcoming.

They knew all the steps by now, but sometimes she surprised him with an angling of her hips or a new way she twisted her body to better take him in. It was perfect as always, even though she had decided after their night together at the inn that he would need to finish outside of her until they got to Winterfell. As good as it was to spill within her, any manner of fucking Arya Stark still felt like a privilege; he had no complaints about needing to withdraw to release on her stomach, back, or even just the floor.

When they had finished, he kissed her lightly and wiped them both of any excess seed with a cloth wet from their waterskin, then guided her to lay upon where he had smoothed his cloak out on a flat part of the ground. She looked at him with unexpected affection and buried her face against his chest, one arm around him and the other tucked between her breasts.

"Maybe we should just leave," she whispered. "We could sail west - even their warriors live peacefully. War isn't like it is here. We could leave this place and start over." That worried him. Arya didn't run away from anything, battle least of all.

"Arya," he said softly, not sure what he could say that wouldn't sound accusatory.

"I should have never put you in this position; should have just left your solar and sailed to Winterfell." The words hit him like sharp steel. His hand stopped its abstract tracing on her back.

Anger stirred deep in his lungs, shortening his breath and making him pull himself back away from her. He had chosen to lay with her just as much as she had, it wasn't as though she had forced him down and kept him there. She hadn't told him not to return the letter from House Dayne that arrived the day she left. _We've heard rumours of wolves ravaging the Stormlands and hope you and your lords are safe from their terrors_, they had written. Gendry didn't reply for nearly a week, unsure of how to respond to their thinly veiled reference, and when he did his scroll was shallow and insincere. Arya hadn't made him do anything - it had been his choice, just as it had been when he first kissed her on that desk and told her to stay with him in his chambers.

"We don't have the numbers. If the Dornish stayed in alliance with Bran he'd be safe." Gendry had thought that very thing many times in the past few weeks.

"Wouldn't have kept Bronn from stealing," he said flatly.

"Still… If we'd kept our legs closed and our lips apart your negotiations would have worked. You'd be happy in Storm's End with a beautiful wife right now and not in a wet, cold cave in -"

He cut her off, "Some part of me knew I would never marry Lady Dayne the second you came to my forge." It was true. No matter how much he tried to deny it over the following days, his gut knew the instant he first heard her voice.

"Then I shouldn't have come to the Stormlands at all." He looked to her and made no effort to cover the pain he knew was clear on his face. She swallowed and stood by what she'd said, grey eyes studying him for any sign of agreement.

Even after four years of lordship, Gendry's words often failed him. He kissed her instead. Maybe that would explain things without making him sound like an imbecile. He could translate her response of harsh kisses and a soft tongue with ease - she was glad she went, even if she couldn't admit it aloud. His arm found its home around her warm torso again.

He would miss Dorne, certainly, but he didn't regret his actions. He been to Sunspear once for five days of negotiations that ended with their Neutrality Agreement, and then to Starfall to spend two weeks with House Dayne while they did everything they could to convince him of the match. It was too hot there, especially with the way he preferred linens and leathers to silks and satins, but it was beautiful. Massive water gardens and lush tropical apiaries; mornings awakening to the sound of exotic birds and the sweet scent of flowers. Still, he'd always choose being in this cave, hungry, damp, and cold over being there - Dorne didn't have Arya.

"And what would happen to Bran?" He asked when their lips separated.

"I don't know. He was just in one of those… states the whole time, like he was living in another vision or warging into some creature. That's got to mean this ends badly for us."

Gendry considered it and brushed some hair that had escaped her braid away from her neck.  
"I don't know. He did that during Yara's Rebellion, too, even when she made it into the throne room." Arya stilled in his arms. "I think maybe its how he avoids influencing the future with all he sees."

She tilted her head to stare at him. "You were with him when she was there?"

He nodded and her lips moved to softly kiss the scars still prominent on his shoulder and chest. Yara had given him both, the first with a smash of her hatchet and the second with a desperate thrust of a shortsword as he swung his hammer into her ribs. He had been entirely convinced he was dead, that she had pierced his heart and ended him, while he laid there on the newly finished wooden floors and felt more blood than he knew his body could hold pour beneath his armour and pool around him. Ser Brienne emerged then and killed Yara with one unseen swing of her sword; Gendry still remembered oddly wondering if he was a ghost watching from afar. He remained groggy but conscious as Brienne checked his wounds and brought a maester. The man brought him to some infirmary somewhere in the Keep, stripped him, and washed and sewed his wounds. Later they informed him that the worst of the damage had been done by the tearing of his mail into his skin from pressure more than any cut of her blades. Yara had gone for where her own armour was weakest; had he worn plate mail instead of chain he would have been as dead as he believed he was when he fell back from her sword.

Arya kept her lips pressed upon the lower scar, and held herself closer to him, extending her left arm to lace her fingers through his. For a proud killer, she was surprisingly fond of handholding, especially when they laid together in bed. It was a small thing, but soft details were low in her inventory - Gendry enjoyed what she'd give him, even if it was just the sweet gesture of wanting his hand in hers. The intimacy of thinking about the past and her concern brought back a fluttering feeling he once thought was an invention of overly-romantic maidens and their bards. He was a damn fool, but he wasn't sure he wanted to be anything else.

-

Darry was a decrepit castle, but it was still too fine for them to enter without raising suspicions. They stayed along the village in its shadow, instead.

Arya left their horses in a stable and they travelled by foot to blend in better with the smallfolk. Their aliases hadn't changed yet in their trip - Nan and Clovis. Arya had been surprised he remembered what she had called herself in Harrenhal, and he wished he had chosen a name that didn't remind him of Davos every time he said it. Their last few interactions had been charged with disappointment; Gendry wished he had left a better impression before the old man was taken from the world. He wondered about Marya - had anyone told her of his murder? Was she waiting for him in their cottage by the sea?

Perhaps Davos had been right to doubt him, here he was was off in the Riverlands while his territory sat between the least friendly forces in the realm. If he had gone back he would almost certainly have been killed; the Stormlands had revolted against his ancestor Argella Durrandon when they felt it was best for them, and she had been the daughter of Storm Kings, not some bastard who showed up a few years prior.

A young boy no older than five with a head of curly auburn hair ran out to stop them as they walked.

"Hammer!" He shouted, pointing at the weapon strapped across Gendry's back.

He squatted down and looked the boy in his light blue eyes. "That's right. Have you seen one before?"

"You think you can lift it?" Arya asked the child. Gendry looked at her strangely, then unfastened the buckle and put the head to the ground. He had never considered that she would enjoy the presence of children - few women who enjoyed slitting throats also found humor in the games of babes.

The child strained and tried with all his might, but the hammer barely budged.

Arya laughed and moved to help him. Her hands hadn't yet grasped the handle when a woman hurried down to them.

The mirth left Arya's eyes as she looked at the woman and her son; her hair was the same shade of auburn and was gathered into a long, thick plait that fell down her back. Gendry knew then why she reacted as she did. They hadn't spoken of her family since they first wandered the kingsroad as children, but he had no doubts that these two reminded her of her mother and youngest brother. Word had reached King's Landing of the way Ramsay Bolton had killed the boy, shot with an arrow in a sick game meant to torment Jon.

"You ought to get off the road for a bit - there's trouble up the way," the woman said as she scooped the boy up onto her hip. Arya looked to him and then back to the woman. Her face seemed normal again.

"Thanks," she said. The woman invited them in for a bowl of stew, a hunk of stale bread, and some watered down wine. They spoke little as they ate, mostly just with the boy about his favourite animals and colours, and a bit with the mother about her embroidery. Gendry noticed Arya slide two silver stags beneath her empty bowl before they left.

The trouble on the road found them in the shape of a young man running from lords on horseback. His dark beard grew in sparse patches that told Gendry he was not yet twenty and his hands were thickened from a life of labor. He barely even saw them, tumbling head-first into the mud when he tried to stop too late.

The riders approached in a fit of laughter but quieted when Arya offered the boy her hand to stand.

"This one's needed by Lord Roote."

"Why?" She stood in front of him as though she were protecting an old friend. Gendry's chest felt almost as though he had been drinking harsh rum; warmth and pride spread through him as he watched Arya defend the young man.

"Been stealing eggs from his coop."

"What's the punishment?" Gendry asked.

"Maybe a hand, maybe a head. Depends on how our Lord feels when he returns."

"What of a trial by combat?" Arya's head spun to him so fast he thought she might have broken her neck. The boy muttered something about being of no use with a sword, but Gendry quieted him with glance. He would do it.

"For some eggs?" The fatter man on horseback asked. Gendry waited impatiently for their answer.

"It's his right," the younger man said with a sigh. They hoisted Gendry and Arya onto their steeds and made the boy run beside as they approached their lord's holdfast. Arya glared at him the entire ride.

The trial went quickly. Lord Roote was away from home, but some highborn knight offered to be his champion. The man thrusted more than he swung and couldn't figure out how to avoid anything other than a sword. It was a matter of minutes before the sharpened end of Gendry's hammer came too close to his head and he yielded.

The boy thanked him profusely. Gendry had just accepted a mug of ale hoisted into his hands in gratitude when Arya ripped it from him and downed it before dragging him from the clearing and into a stable. She slammed the door and slid the crossbeam to lock it from the inside, ignoring the fact that the horses were startled by her haste.

"Now?" He asked her, shrugging off his satchel and unfastening the strings of his doublet.

"Not _that_ you idiot," she huffed. _Oh_. "What were you thinking?"

"That some eggs aren't worth a hand or a life," he responded with a shrug.

Arya sneered at him, "but they're worth risking _our_ lives instead?" Her nostrils flared and her small hands were clenched into tight fists. "Do you really think no one's going to recognize the spitting image of a young Robert Baratheon wielding a war hammer with a fucking stag on it and not put things together?" Gendry smiled softly at her.

"You were worried about me."

Her grey eyes stared at him incredulously. "That's not - have you listened to _anything_ I've been saying? This wasn't about if you'd be alright, this is about whether they recognized us. If people know we're headed north they'll know that's where Bran might be."

He acted without thinking, pressing his hands to her shoulders to hold her in place long enough to kiss her lightly.

"Stop that." She shrugged off his hands and stepped back two steps.

"We're fine."

"We're not. You should have at least let me do it instead." Her rage was contagious.

"Right, because a woman fighting better than any man wouldn't raise any questions at all. That Valyrian steel dagger couldn't possibly be the same one that took down the Night King." She shook her head angrily and narrowed her eyes.

"Just take a horse and fucking go." Arya didn't say another word to him until they reached the Trident just before sundown, and that was only to tell him they wouldn't be stopping for food.

**Podrick**

The North was always so bloody cold. It wasn't as bad as it had been while they prepared for the Long Night, or when he and Ser Brienne brought Sansa to Jon on the Wall, but he was still caught in a perpetual chill that never seemed to leave his bones. How had he lived here for years? He was grateful to have finally reached the Neck the day prior, riding through the mists and cold swamps surrounding Greywater Watch.

Podrick had been traveling via horse for days now in an effort to find Arya. Presumably Gendry would be with her, given the way she had kissed him with no regard for the fact that Pod was an arm's length from them both. That had surprised him more than most things - plenty of men in Winterfell had tried their hand at going after the younger Stark sister, but he was never aware of anyone succeeding. He wasn't even sure she was interested in men at all until he saw her in the Keep with the Lord of the Stormlands. It was sweet, really, the way the fear and worry drained from her face as soon as she saw him.

Now if he could only find them.

The Reach's soldiers had burned every boat in the bay, and it wasn't likely they had managed to get out before that. Podrick began his sail up to White Harbor from a stop in Tarth eight days after the attack on King's Landing. Now he was on the sixth day of his ride south and still had no idea how far Arya and Gendry might have gotten.

The sun set in beautiful swirls of rose, peach, and lilac and he stopped to drink some ale from the flagon he had purchased earlier that day. He ought to stop to sleep soon, but the idea of having another few hundred leagues to go made him continue for another hour.

A fire flickered from the forest to the east and he dismounted his mare to tie her to a tree while he investigated. The fire grew closer as he walked, until he could see it in a small clearing of trees just before him.

A woman was squatted with her feet flat to the earth as she poked something above the flames - it looked like she might have a rabbit or a large squirrel cooking on a spit. Her black hair hung in a thick curtain that nearly swept the light swell of her hips as she stood. He could see her face now, skin the color of sand and cheeks long but pronounced. Podrick couldn't remember her name - had he ever actually been introduced, or had she just shouted something about why they needed to leave?

The woman must have heard him approaching. She reached for a double-sided weapon leaning against a tree to the north. In one movement, she spun her back to the flame and stuck the blade into the fire, feet spread wide in a steady base.

There was no use in staying behind the cover of the trees when she already knew he was there. Podrick approached her cautiously, raising both hands to show he meant no harm. She eyed his sword as if to ridicule the gesture and twirled the staff to exchange which side baked. The blade she had just pulled out of the flames glowed a stunning orange and slowly cooled to a deep red.

"Don't bother. You're no threat," she said as he went to remove his sword belt to show his intentions were peaceful.

"I have a message for you." She cocked a brow in incredulity. "For your master, I mean."

"I have no master." She spat out the words in disgust.

Podrick sighed, she was difficult, probably intentionally so. "For Lady Stark, then."

The woman removed the other side of the staff from the fire and turned it so it faced the sky before walking towards him slowly. Her feet crossed one another with each deliberate step; she wanted to intimidate him.

"I don't think she likes to be called that."

"Well, I have a message for Arya Stark, whatever you choose to call her."

She stepped in front of him and twirled the staff, stopping the glowing blade so close to his face that he could feel its heat in waves. The woman was tall; his eyes were level with the bridge of her nose rather than her gaze.

"There's time for that later." She scanned from his hair down to his boots and back up again. "When's the last time you bathed?" She smirked seductively. This was a method of communication Podrick could deal with.

**Arya**

Arya fidgeted in her saddle as they continued north. She and Gendry were somewhere in the Riverlands, still south of The Twins but north of Palisade Village. It was a nice enough day, at least for Winter; the skies were clear and the sun felt strong when the winds didn't blow.

She was sick of ignoring him. Still, being angry was better than being sad, so her lips stayed tight as she stared ahead on her horse. For four days after they left Darry she refused to rest, switching horses twice a day and even galloping for long stretches at a time. If anyone was following them, they were doing a damn good job of staying hidden.

Seven days had passed since the trial by combat, and they had slept and eaten only once. She hadn't even let them stop to see Hot Pie at the Inn at Crossroads, icily telling Gendry he was welcome to stop and stay on his own for as long as he liked. In truth she wanted to see their old friend too, but seeing Hot Pie would mean drinking and laughing, and that would mean she'd forget to be angry with Gendry.

By the fifth night they had both nearly fallen from their horses multiple times and the gnashing hunger in her stomach was too strong to ignore. They stopped at a legitimate inn, not just a stable or empty sept. The bed in the small room was surprisingly comfortable, but pettiness made her lie upon the floor to keep her distance when she saw Gendry sit on the mattress. He was equally as petty as she, and laid down on the filthy planks by her side without a word. She rolled away from him to hide the smile she couldn't beat down at his stubborn persistence. Sleep betrayed her and broke the mask of displeasure, making her find her way into his arms and grip her hand around his in the night. Arya made sure she was coldly away from him again before he woke.

That had been two days ago.

The mid-afternoon sun was just descending from its peak when Arya smelled fresh, standing water. She rode towards it, hopping off her horse when the fauna became too thick to walk closer.

Gendry called after her. He had become just as annoyed with her as she was with him after the first few days of her attitude, and sounded as though he had half a mind to leave her right there. He wouldn't actually do it, so she ducked under a few branches and climbed over a large rock to the source of the scent. The woods opened up to a lake too large to see the full perimeter, its surface glassy in the still air. Arya smiled and continued forward, taking off her boots as she went.

Gendry mumbled something about her not tying her horse as he got to the rocky shore behind her. She unfastened the ties to her cloak and let it fall beside her boots. "What are you doing?"

"We haven't bathed since King's Landing." She removed her jerkin, then her bottoms and small clothes in one smooth motion.

The water was shockingly cold - she might have even gasped if she didn't want Gendry to suffer from it just as much as she had - and the rocks beneath were slippery with algae. The scene above reflected on the lake like a mirror, melding sky and water into one blue world. She wished they had soap or at least some cleansing herbs, but supposed rinsing was better than nothing at all.

Gendry sighed on the shore and followed suit. She didn't need to look at him to know he was making that stupid face he did when he knew she was right but couldn't admit it, eyes looking to the right, mouth tight, and brows slightly pinched. His movements were always loud, dangerously so, and smoothed river stones didn't change that; they crunched and shifted beneath his bare feet as he walked to the water.

"Fucking hells," he exclaimed as he stepped into the lake. Arya dove under and wet her hair, making sure he saw that she didn't flinch; she turned around while submerged so he could watch her unbothered face as she surfaced. Eyes as blue as the water around them rolled beneath black brows. She let her own eyes take in his body. The few times they had lain together since leaving the capital had been in the dark or were at best lit by a dim fire - she hadn't properly seen him naked since they laid in his bed in Storm's End. Even when she was supposed to be angry with him, it was an enjoyable sight. Her eyes paused on the length hanging from between his legs.

"It's fucking freezing!" He defended, moving further into the water and covering himself with his hands.

"That's not why I'm looking." He snorted out an unexpected laugh before bracing himself and forcing his body beneath the surface.

Arya turned around again and swam farther out. It really was cold. She shouldn't have been in there that long as it was, but her pride demanded it; she was a daughter of the North, she could handle a little cold water. Her hands rubbed over her skin once more to get off any dirt or blood she had missed, and she slowly walked out of the lake.

They had covered enough distance in the days prior to be able to afford to take their time here. Arya ignored Gendry's grumbling about something she couldn't quite hear and laid upon a massive, mostly-flat boulder a little bigger and taller than a table. The sun was warm; she let it dry her and closed her eyes to soak in its rays.

Gendry approached loudly again.

"We didn't have time to sleep for five days and now you want to sit on a rock." She kept her eyes shut and didn't respond.

He sat on the exposed sliver of stone waiting for her to move, but she stayed where she was. A gust of wind blew and chilled them, instantly setting her skin to gooseflesh.

"I'm going to freeze to death if you don't move."

"Good."

He nudged her easily with his elbow to make sufficient room to lie down beside her.

They laid there for a few minutes, and Arya tried to remember to be mad at him - not to think about the fact he was nude and warm. The rock was small enough that their hips and shoulders were pressed together; she would just need to lift her hand and let it fall comfortably to touch what she had stared at in the lake.

Another breeze blew over them and she still hadn't fully warmed up from the icy water. Her hand moved as she had imagined, falling to brush against velvety flesh. She felt Gendry's head turn towards her to see if she was looking at him - she wasn't.

"Done ignoring me then?"

"No."

She let her hand move despite that, lazy strokes and grasps continuing until the softness beneath began to grow and stiffen. His sigh sounded more tired than irritated now; the urge to look at him was harder to deny. Maybe she could go back to ignoring him afterwards.

She let her eyes open and faced him, tempted to shut them again when she saw he was staring at the sky instead of her. There wasn't enough time - he must have seen her head move in his periphery. His mouth pulled into a stupid smirk that made her remove her touch entirely, locking her left hand beneath her right with a firm grasp of the wrist lest it wander back. Her neck craned towards the lake as though she had seen something of interest in the water.

It didn't matter, she had given herself away. Gendry was just as petty in character as she was, but he was hopeless at withholding affection. He rolled to his side and put his left arm around her torso to pull her close and kiss her shoulder, then her neck. Heat began to concentrate below her stomach, but she kept her breathing steady and her eyes upon the lake. A rough hand traced the curve of her waist and found its place on her breast. It took only a few motions of the other hand between her legs for Arya to decide ignoring him was stupid, after all. She gave in and turned towards him, still not touching him, until he made that irritating smirk again. She only let herself kiss him to change his expression. He turned her body to face him, his hand still working at her gloriously, and kissed her deeper with each touch. It didn't take him long to have her legs trembling as she tried not to make a sound with her release. She was not successful and cursed herself when she heard the small moan leave her throat.

Gendry smiled against her lips at her shudders and removed his mouth enough to make an arrogant face at her, forehead creasing as his right brow raised and his mouth tugged up defiantly. She shook her head childishly and opened her mouth to chastise him, but a breathy laugh bubbled out instead like an overflowing brook.

He stood from the rock. For a moment, she was horrified that perhaps this was all just a show for him to win their standoff. Thankfully, he was pulling her to him before she completed the thought, moving her body to the angled section of the boulder to enter her slowly and use the the stone to leverage a better angle for her. It was everything she needed. Why had she ignored him when they could have been doing this? He slipped in and out until he had her one good thrust from bliss, then intentionally slowed down. She opened her eyes and glared at him. _Oh, right. This was why I ignored him,_ she remembered - because he was haughty and stubborn and stupid. He kissed her again and went back to his former rhythm, this time driving past her gasps until she cried out against his shoulder as she tensed around him.

Once the daze faded, Arya realized that a slight pain she had ignored in her back was now open and bleeding upon the jutting stone. She could tell Gendry was almost done and tapped his shoulder lightly to remind him to spill onto the rocks and not within her. They were weeks from anywhere she could acquire moon tea, and she wasn't risking things like she had the night before their battle with the dead.

His eyes shut hard as he pulled out. It was strange, but somehow the fact that he had to finish outside of her made Arya feel robbed in a way, like the satisfying conclusion of their coupling was now at an awkward imbalance.

He leaned against the rock after his release, eyes closed and breathing heavy.

Arya tried to wipe the blood from behind her so he wouldn't see it - he worried unnecessarily about things like that. She tossed him his clothes and donned her own.

"Still angry with me?" Gendry asked her, his tone raising with arrogant sarcasm.

"Still doing stupid shit?"

He sighed and she knew he was probably running his hand over his face in irritation.

She laced up her boots and thought about the remainder of their journey. They were likely still two weeks away from Winterfell, three if another snowstorm hit. Arya wasn't sure how she could last nearly a full moon's turn without knowing if Bran and Jon were at the bottom of Blackwater Bay. She tried to stifle the thought and fastened her still wet hair into a tight bun.

Gendry grabbed her elbow and pulled her to him. He had managed to get on his breeches and trousers; his linen shirt remained in his hand and his leathers were draped beside where he leaned against another boulder.

His hand smoothed back a piece of hair she had missed in front of her ear and came to rest on her neck. The intensity of his stare stirred discomfort in her gut. She looked away from his face and noticed some blood she had missed on their rock.

Gendry kissed her softly and with too much tenderness, as if she were about to go off to die, or as though she had been missing for the past week and not just angry with him. He was always doing things like this, always overly sentimental and affectionate without cause. She allowed it this time only because his lips were soft and something about kissing him back released a tension deep in her lungs and neck.

A stick fell and hit Gendry hard in the shoulder. He turned his head in confusion - the nearest tree was too far for it to have been knocked down by the wind.

A woman stood ten paces from them, one hand on her hip in impatience.

"I gave you two over an hour and you're still doing this?"

Arya grinned.

"Niiotha," Gendry greeted with obvious false courtesy.

She approached them and embraced Arya, then went and rinsed her face in the lake. If Niiotha was here, that meant they had gotten to White Harbor. Jon and Bran were alive. She confirmed it and explained that the others had left for the North after waiting on the ship one full day for Arya to arrive.

"Why do you have that?" Gendry asked when they got back to their horses and he saw the quarterstaff tied to her things. "You've ruined the blade!"

"_I_ didn't," Arya defended angrily. "What did you do to this?" The ends were stained black and the edges looked dulled.

"I liked it better when it could burn and cut." Niiotha shrugged and mounted her horse. "You have my bag?" Arya nodded and handed her the satchel, then caught her staff in one hand when Niiotha tossed it to her.

"For fuck's sake," Gendry muttered as it nearly impaled his horse. "Next time don't give my work to someone who's going to ruin it." Arya didn't bother telling him that the woman beside them also had three hatchets from the storeroom he had shown her in Storm's End.

"_Your_ work? No wonder she cried about it all the time back home."

"I never cried over it." Gendry laughed at her defensiveness and looked at them both, then back at the staff before they set off.

They had ridden a few hours when Niiotha came up between them.

"I'm supposed to give you a message," she said as though she wasn't entirely sure whether that was right or not.

Arya braced herself - no one should know where they were to be able to send a message at all. "From whom?" She asked.

"I was told to say Brienne of Tarth, but it was a friend she sent."

"A friend?"

"Good-looking, red armour, good in bed?"

"Podrick Payne," Arya said. Gendry turned his head at at her as his brows shot up in a mixture of shock and surprise. Clearly he wanted to know just how she had answered that so quickly. "Everyone knows that," she dismissed with a shake of her head. It wasn't surprising that Niiotha had slept with him.

"Right. Well, he found me one night and I wanted to know what he was like, so-"

"Can you just get to the message?" Gendry's patience was thin. Niiotha glared at him and continued.

"When we were done, he said he was sent to tell you that Lady Brienne -"

"Ser. She was a knight."

"A woman knight?" Gendry scoffed at her surprise, likely replaying her talk of the equality of her homelands when she had answered questions at the feast.

"The first in the history of the realm, and the only until her death. What did she say?"

"I think she's still a knight. He said she is recovering on Tarth and will write to Winterfell when she can. She wasn't able to ride North, but she asks that you tell the King that she is an ally to the south until she is well enough to fight again."

"That's impossible. I saw her corpse," Gendry looked confused.

"Did you check for a heartbeat?" His lack of response told them he hadn't.

"Then you didn't see her corpse, you saw her body."

"She was face down in her blood," he defended.

"Happens to plenty of people."

Arya was sick of their arguing and moved her horse between them.

"Did he say anything else about Ser Brienne?" Niiotha shook her head. "Well, I'm at least glad to know someone survived. We'll write to her when we get to Winterfell."

They continued north until they were just two leagues from the Twins. There was nowhere to exchange horses, so they made camp instead. Niiotha warned them she didn't have any more moon tea, as if they were going to just fuck right next to where she sat, before taking watch and letting them sleep. Any residual frustration she held against Gendry after the lake had faded with the knowledge that Bran and Jon were safe in Winterfell. She made no effort to stay apart from him that night, instead curling up against his body beneath his cloak and stroking her thumb over his knuckles when she covered his hand with hers.

Niiotha woke them before dawn.

Whether from the angle at which she had twisted herself on the rock or from riding without rest for days, her left hip ached more than was comfortable. It had broken twice before, once without her knowledge during her escape from King's Landing and once to properly heal; she worried something must have happened to it again now.

The re-breaking and healing of her hip had been the single most physically painful experience of her life. For two weeks she laid in Niiotha's family's bark-covered longhouse, a pile of furs the only thing separating her from the air that alternated between an icy vacuum and the stifling heat of a desert. They tried to give her a tonic of berries, bark, and leaves ground into a paste and ran through boiling water before the rebreaking, but she foolishly refused. Always strong willed, Arya had convinced herself she would remain tough and tight lipped about the pain. Instead she had to be physically restrained as Niiotha's grandmother smashed three surprisingly strong strikes of rock to her hip. She drifted in and out of consciousness upon the third tap, aware only of a constant smothering of pain. Any strength she once had crumbled away with the bone; it took only a shifting of the furs or a twitch of her foot to leave her whimpering, her face flooded with hot tears. By the third morning she could take no more and choked down the gritty liquid they had left by her bed days earlier, now cold and congealed as fresh jam. The old woman sat by her bed each evening to massage the shattered bone into the right places and wrap the hip against movements that Arya could not even imagine attempting; Niiotha always followed with bone broth and a minty tea. Sometimes she was accompanied by a village dog who nuzzled Arya's face and lapped up her sweat. There were a few delirious moments in which she could have sworn the fluffy dog was her direwolf come across the sea to nurture her until she could again walk and fight.

Once she got past the second week, things improved. She was able to turn without sobbing, even began sitting up to drink her tea. The broth thickened and soon housed potatoes with a variety of vegetables and waterfowl fresh-caught from the lake. Another week passed, and Arya was able to stand. Three days later and she could clumsily shuffle to the edge of the longhouse without collapsing in pain. Each day, Niiotha and her cousin helped her walk a little farther, guiding her by the arm when her leg no longer wanted to move. _Hips heal slowly_, their grandmother had warned her before the break; she was right. Arya was forced to spend much of the next four moonturns pouring over maps, learning their language, and helping with meager tasks like the stringing of new bows, shucking of river shellfish, and crafting of weapons. She had gained a newfound appreciation for Gendry's work then, as her hands cramped up uselessly a few hours into trying to bind wood and stone.

Although it was Niiotha's cousin who warmed her healing bed some nights, Arya found her mind turned his eyes blue and his hands rough whenever she woke in the dark of night. Slowly it would return to her, the fact that he smelled of cedar and icy water, not smoke and steel. She would move away from him then, deciding night was as good a time as any to test her hip and wander the forest or river by the light of the stars and moon. Sometimes she saw their wolves; usually she just heard them. When she did see them, she always wished they would be larger, that their eyes might be the size of stones and not of cherries, that their flanks would be rise to nearly the height of a horse and not barely higher than dogs'.

It was in healing in Niiotha's village that Arya came to terms with the truth: she needed to return to Westeros. The West was of a place of wolves, yes, but not _her_ wolves. She stayed with them until her hip was well enough to fight and run, then made her way southeast. Niiotha joined her and Palomai, who had come with her from his homelands before any of this; it took another quarter of a year to reach the coast. From there they sailed south, mapping out the cartographer's final destinations before bidding him farewell to live out his days with three wives in the island paradise of Yuisaraq's home. They had stayed on the island for nearly half a year, until Arya's concern for her family made her break protocol and offend their hosts with her insistence on sailing east.

The journey back took fourteen weeks, but eventually their ship saw the rocky coast of Last Light.

Conflict stronger than the winter winds of Winterfell and the angry sea of Storm's End combined in Arya's lower gut. She had made it back to Westeros - her family was alive - but she had missed the first rebellion entirely and was still nearly a hundred leagues away from her endangered brother.

She tried her best to drive it from her mind now - she could think about this the next time they made camp. Arya tried to swallow down the worry and ignore the aching in her hip, patting her mare and increasing their pace. She must have failed, because Gendry looked back and stopped to wait for her, concern radiating from his eyes though he said nothing. The memory of her time in the West made her heart soften; mayhap she was too harsh on him. He was good to her, better than she deserved, and-

A rustling in the trees around them broke off her thoughts. Niiotha heard it too. She pointed her lips to the tree line and slipped from her horse. Before her feet touched the ground, a storm of arrows flew through their path. Two hit Gendry in the side and he slid off his horse in a doubled-over heap on the ground.

Arya shouted and leapt down, the quarterstaff already drawn in her hands. More arrows flew and she sprinted towards the woods. An animalistic growl sounded from deep within the trees, followed by the gnashing of stone and screams of men.

"I told you it was them," said a filthy looking man Arya recognized from the trial by combat as he approached Gendry, sword in hand. Gendry went for his hammer but was slowed by the arrows deep in his ribs.

Arya unfastened her dagger, trying to figure out the best angle to throw it, when a massive flash of fur tore apart the attacker.

"Fuck!" Gendry shouted. He hastened backwards, dragging himself with his hands until he fell and groaned at the shifting of the arrows. The horses sprinted off to the forest, but a series of scared neighs and pained whinnies told her a pack of wolves waited beyond the trees.

"Nymeria?" Arya called softly. She approached the direwolf slowly, weapons cast upon the ground and hands up. It was definitely her, now bigger than ever and coated in blood. She licked a chunk of the man's flesh from her muzzle and stepped forward on paws nearly the size of a loaf of bread. Her snout was cold and wet against Arya's hand. She brought her massive face in line with hers. Arya smiled lightly, ashamed of the twinge of fear she felt at the sight of her old friend; Nymeria nuzzled her affectionately. Her heart released and she wrapped her arms around the wolf's neck, then scratched her head.

"Yes!" Niiotha shouted. "I knew I'd see a wolf-horse!" Nymeria tilted her head at the woman skeptically, as though even she knew that was the wrong term.

"I'm riddled with arrows and you're excited about the damn wolf?" _Gendry_. Arya patted Nymeria's head again and ran to him to see how bad his wounds were. She cut off the shafts so she could move his layers of clothing. They were deep, but didn't seem to have hit anything important. His breathing was normal, so she doubted his lung had been punctured.

Arya looked to him and felt her face make that concerned expression she hated - women who wanted to be helpless always made the same face when they dropped a scarf before a knight or asked for help lifting something pathetically light. His face felt rough in her hands as stared at him. This was twice in one moon's turn she had thought him dead. She kissed him softly, keeping her forehead against his after they pulled apart.

"So dramatic," Niiotha complained as she approached. "Look, you're fine." Gendry cried out when she ripped the first arrowhead out of him without warning.

"Aren't you supposed to hold the flesh down and do that slowly?" Even Arya knew that much.

"Do you want to do it?" Arya conceded - she was better at taking people apart than at putting them together - and winced as Niiotha pulled the second one just as roughly.

"I don't think this qualifies as fine. I don't feel fine." Gendry clutched at his side as blood poured out from the two holes between his ribs.

Niiotha rolled her eyes and pulled a small leather bag from her satchel, then handed Gendry a leaf. "Chew this and spit it into your hand."

"What?"

"Do it," Arya snapped, irritated with them both. He skeptically chewed it and did as they said; Niiotha guided his hand to fill the two gaping wounds. She had used the same plant on Arya once after a bad knife slash in Baqabatar - it involved some alchemy with a substance in the wounded person's spit to protect from infection and stop bleeding.

Niiotha found a thin blue fabric that she wound around Gendry's torso, turning to nod at Arya approvingly when she noticed his pronounced abdominal muscles. Arya ignored her and helped him stand.

"You think they told anyone else?" She asked him.

"Maybe." Gendry looked ashamed - her anger the days before finally made sense to him. The fact that he was alive after having arrows lodged in his side was more important to her; she kissed him again instead of reminding him that she had told him this would happen.

They had no horses now that the wolves had devoured them and had to walk on foot to the nearest stables. Arya left five silver stags for each horse they took. It was sundown, but they had just slept the night before, so she kept them moving north.

Nymeria stayed alongside them for the journey. Her pack was less comfortable, and chose instead to follow from a far distance. Arya was grateful to have her wolf by her side when they passed the Twins. Images of Robb with Grey Wind's head sewn to his body flashed stronger than any of her slitting Walder Frey's throat or poisoning the rest of his house, and Nymeria pressed her head against Arya's boot as if she remembered it too.

They were likely equidistant between Greywater Watch and Moat Cailin when she decided they could afford to sleep again. The pack of wolves were a great help, providing both peace of mind while they slept and meat shared from their kill of two elk. Nymeria curled up beside Arya that night, though Gendry seemed uneasy.

"What if she forgets who I am and decides I'm too close?" He whispered to her in the dark. Nymeria's palm-sized ear twitched at the comment and Arya stroked the soft fur of her head gently.

"I guess we'll find out."

His wounds were healing decently and no longer opened every time he mounted his horse, though he still flinched when she prodded them unexpectedly before they slept.

"Just checking," she said with a smirk. He kissed her chastely, eyes glancing to where Nymeria laid too close for his comfort, and slept farther from her than he usually would. Arya found his fear hilarious.

After another day's ride, the branches surrounding them began to shrink inwards. The trees grew darker and more pointed with each mile, until finally they were surrounded by the scent of cold, clean pine. _The North_, Arya thought. They were nearly at the junction with the road leading to White Harbor, just over a week from Winterfell. She was almost home.


	8. Chapter 8 - Winterfell II

_Chapter 8: Winterfell II_

**Davos**

The mutton stew was simple but warm, and really that was all he could ask for after these past few days of harsh winter weather. The Notherners insisted that this wasn't a storm; "Just some snow," they'd say in their gruff accents, as though enough new accumulation to spill into his boot was just a dusting. It was just his luck that he'd managed to find his way to Winterfell in the depth of Winter yet again that same season. He had no idea how much longer he'd be here - it wasn't as though he had many other options. With the young lord of the Stormlands cut down with the other Lords Paramount, Davos had no desire to head back to his home of the past thirty years. Likewise, his original domain of King's Landing had been destroyed again, once by wildfire, once by a dragon, and now it was occupied by forces he vehemently opposed. Mayhap he'd best get used to the cold.

"This is sheep?" Yuisaraq asked him. They were an odd pairing, but had become fast friends on the journey back. Her knowledge of ships and explanation of Western sailing methods fueled fascinating conversations, at least in his opinion. The other foreigners were bored by talk of boats, but he cared for them less anyhow. Yuisaraq's knowledge of the Common Tongue was getting better, and her verbs matched their nouns often enough that Shireen Baratheon would have grinned in delighted approval.

"The same whose fur makes cloaks?" She continued when he nodded.

"Well, it's wool, but yes."

"That's sad. They're kind creatures." She stirred the stew with her spoon and Davos knew she would likely not take another bite.

"They're all kind creatures if you look at them too long. You think a bear says that before he eats a person?" Palomai was impertinent, especially compared to the other Westerner's softer tones and views.

Davos ignored the comment and looked as servants whispered to the Queen in the North further down the table. She nodded sternly and they curtsied before heading back to the kitchens. He knew where they would go next - to the King of the Six Kingdoms, still withdrawn to the godswood even for his one meal per day.

King Bran had always been a bit strange in meetings, but Davos never would have predicted he'd spend more of his time as a tree than as a leader during a rebellion. Word was beginning to spread - whispers in the courtyard and amongst the commonfolk that the King in the South had withdrawn because he could not handle the loss he had foreseen. Davos himself had not seen the King since they arrived at the castle gates three weeks prior. Jon assured him he was alright, just focused on "strategizing." Even a lowborn smuggler like Davos knew that was a lie.

"Your grace," Lord Ryswell approached the Queen in the North. His dark, curly hair was sparse around the edges but thickened as it went inward, culminating in a grove atop the crown of his head. "Scouts report three riders to the south, within a league of the castle."

"Do they think Arya is among them?"

"Hard to say with the snow, your grace." Sansa Stark nodded and rapped her thin, pale fingers upon the armrest of her throne. The silver and black rings she wore upon her fingers created an impatient pattern of quiet thuds.

"We'd better open the gates just in case." The steward nodded and ran to tell the gatekeeper.

Sansa asked a handmaiden to fetch Jon in the possibility that it truly was Arya riding towards them, and Davos followed her out to the battlements to get a decent view. He couldn't see a damn thing though the white blur of snow upon wind, but the Queen seemed to have no issue.

"Is that a wolf?" She asked him. Davos couldn't see anything but white - not a wolf, not a rider, not even a damn road.

"Let's hope not."

"Who is the third rider?"

"Likely Podrick Payne, your grace. He was with her in the capital, after all." She nodded and headed towards the stairs.

He made his way to the courtyard after Sansa and her guards and waited to see who might arrive. The North had been anxious for the younger Stark sister's return ever since they heard of Bronn's burning the ships. No one had heard from her, but history pointed towards that being a good thing where Arya Stark was concerned.

Jon arrived shortly after Davos, his thick black cloak sweeping a path behind him as he walked in the snow. He looked anxious as he waited. Davos could see them finally, or at least their outlines. A grey horse led, though he couldn't see its rider through the windswept flakes, followed by two others draped in dark cloaks and another behind them in what looked to be many brown furs.

The riderless horse entered first, only it wasn't a horse at all. A great wolf larger than Jon's ever had been slowly pawed its way through the doors. The guards drew their arrows and unsheathed their swords, but a small figure slid off the horse to quiet the growling beast.

It was Arya Stark - it had to be. No one else would be mad enough to grab a direwolf by the face to quiet it. The creature looked to her and to the men again, then turned to leave. She followed it long enough to reach up and hug it firmly, whispering something kind into its ear as if though were an old friend and not a savage predator of yore.

The wolf seemed almost a tamed mutt as it nuzzled the woman. The rider in brown furs dismounted gracefully and extended a mitten-clad hand to the brute, but it simply sniffed and turned its head back to the first person before trotting off into the snowy drifts.

The small figure turned and approached Sansa. Davos could see her more clearly now - it was definitely the youngest Stark sister. She hugged the Queen tightly, then Jon.

The final rider dismounted as well, though with clumsy hands and heavy feet. Both riders who were not Arya walked forward. The smoother one was Niiotha - that loud woman whom Davos had wanted to physically quiet with a rope or some tar if it would get her to stop talking on the ship from King's Landing to White Harbor - and the second was Gendry.

All three of them looked awful. Arya and Gendry both had dark circles under their eyes and skin so sallow and pale that Davos doubted they would have survived another week on the road. Even Niiotha's skin seemed dull and lifeless, her long hair a snarled mess resembling a matted horse's tail more than that of a human woman.

He could hardly believe his eyes - how had Gendry gotten here? Davos nearly cut out in front of the Queen and Jon to embrace him, but came to his senses. The young Baratheon saw him and had no such sense; he barreled forward in a few cloddish strides and wrapped his arms around him in a tight embrace.

"Glad to see you made it out," Davos said. His eyes misted - it was a wonder the tears didn't freeze solid from the cold.

"Me? I saw the small council room - you really are impossible to kill." Davos chuckled and hugged him again before directing back to the Starks with his brows.

Of course Gendry was with Arya. He had made his choice when she first arrived in Storm's End, try as they all may to deny it, and cemented it when he was foolish enough to spend those days with her in his chambers - a few weeks on the cold kingsroad would practically qualify as a holiday for these two.

Jon embraced the Lord of the Stormlands - Gendry had approached him before the Queen in a clear ignorance of regal order - with a simple arm grab and then a quick pat on the back.

"Lord Baratheon, thank you for bringing my sister here safely." Sansa Stark was patient, but never deferential.

"I think we both know it was the other way around," he laughed. Davos cringed. For a man who spent much of his life making weapons and defensive tools of war, he had absolutely no sense of self-preservation. Jon looked at him oddly and then laughed; Sansa remained stone-faced, but her icy, sky blue eyes twinkled with a recognition of humour.

After they had been received in that bloody freezing courtyard, Sansa called for the maester to inspect them. Neither Gendry nor Arya could keep any food down - doubtless from some ill water or spoiled meat they had consumed on their journey. Maester Wolkan reported that Gendry had some puncture wounds on his side, but they were healing fine; otherwise they seemed to just need rest and a few restorative meals once the affliction had left their gut. Davos and Sansa warned him that neither would willingly drink milk of the poppy, so he slipped it into their stews until Arya caught on and threatened to not eat at all. After that it was just bedrest and lots of tea from elderflower and willowbark.

Davos visited Gendry twice while he recovered. The first time the young lord was fast asleep; his face was strikingly similar to the late king's when he let it rest peacefully. He was awake for the second visit, arguing with the maester that he was fine to go check on Arya in the Main Keep rather than wait around for the illness to pass. Davos served as a welcome distraction then, telling him of their sail north and avoiding all talk of the capital or Dorne. Those conversations would have to wait.

When the young lord recovered, he lent a hand in the forges as he once had before the Battle for Winterfell. _Less like a smith and more like a lord_, Davos remembered telling the boy before leaving for the capital. The lesson hadn't set.

He visited him a third time on a clear afternoon, warm for the North but bloody freezing anywhere else, and led him from the hissing metal to speak privately. The smithy was warm, but there were too many men around to hear what he had to say. Davos led him to an empty room with a nice, roaring fire.

"You're looking better," he said as he handed him a cup of ale.

"Feeling it. Still can't handle wine, but that awful tea they're giving me helps."

"And yet I hear ya haven't been in your own bed since they stopped slipping milk of the poppy into your food." Gendry's ears flushed and he looked away. "Forty nights together on that road and you still sleep in her chambers?" In truth it didn't bother him much, political implications aside. Young love was a precious thing, and Davos remembered how nothing could have torn him away from his bed in his first year of marriage to Marya. Why shouldn't his Lord Paramount experience the same?

"We didn't get much rest." He must have made a face, because Gendry immediately corrected himself with a glance. "Not like that. I just mean we might have stopped to make camp a dozen times the whole the whole trip."

"No time for a raven to the Stormlands, or even to her sister." That _did_ bother him. He had thought Gendry dead; as happy as he was to know he was wrong, he'd prefer to have never mourned the lad in the first place.

"Arya didn't think it was a good idea. She didn't want anyone to know where we were headed - it might lead them to Bran."

Davos paused and ran his gloved hand over his beard. "You're letting her have an awful lot of influence over you."

"And why shouldn't I? Her mind is sharp - one look at our figures and she came up with a better plan for duties and tax policy for the Stormlands than I ever could have."

"Not a word of that to your lords - they won't like a woman telling you how to sort your financials. I wrote to them when you arrived to say you were with me and safe, but they need to hear from ya soon." Gendry nodded and took a sip of the ale. "They were respectable suggestions; her eye is good. Now that Dorne's out of the picture she might make a decent lady, assumin' she's more willing this time."

"I don't want to talk about that." Davos looked at him; he had shaven the beard that grew on the road, returning to the usual well-kept frame around his mouth and chin, and had cleaned the ice and mud from his leathers. He looked every part the Lord he was so hesitant to be.

"I assume you're aware that a bastard would not help your image, nor that of House Stark."

"Don't trouble yourself with that. We're taking… precautions." Davos didn't bother asking what those precautions were. Gendry knew the frustrations of being a bastard, even if he hadn't known his true identity for much of his life - if he said there wouldn't be one, there wouldn't. They had already discussed it once in King's Landing when he had lost his patience at the lad's complacency regarding Arya's time in his chambers; many of the lords were unsure of his leadership to begin with, a child with an unmarried Stark wouldn't make that any better.

"You know," Davos put his hand on the lord's shoulder, "You must be doing somethin' right for the gods to have you in their favor." Gendry raised a brow dubiously. "You tried to choose duty over love and got both instead." The shoulder beneath his hand slumped with a shallow exhalation.

"Not sure you can call it that."

"Well, that duty may not have played out as well as we planned it to." The young lord cupped a hand around the bottom of his mug and looked to him with confusion.

"Perros Blackmont sent a raven to Lord Pylon regarding Dorne." The blue eyes remained bemused. "Youngest son of House Blackmont of Blackmont, between High Hermitage and the Red Mountains, along the Torentine? Very close to house Dayne? He attended some of your dinners in Starfall." Gendry nodded, but Davos had a feeling he could no more picture the young man now than he did before the explanation.

"The lad's a fool, but his information is intriguing. He hopes that staying loyal to Bran may be his chance at inheriting Blackmont over his sister, and thus wrote to Pylon to assure him of his allegiance. He claims House Dayne's been anglin' for Dornish independence for some time. Yara's terms suited the Martells more than the Daynes, thus why they agreed to lead negotiations for the prince and why they took a likin' to you." He couldn't bring himself to tell the rest - the Daynes assumed a baseborn bastard would be easy to manipulate once he found himself lost between the legs of their second daughter, a Baratheon doubly so.

Gendry sighed lightly and looked at the floor through his knees. "Of course. A Baratheon and a poor, hotblooded blacksmith with no education all in one? That's a fool's revolution in the making."

"Would you have gone to war for her?"

"For Lucynda?" Davos repressed a smirk and nodded - who else could he possibly have been talking about? "Against the Starks? No." Mayhap his feelings for Arya were beneficial after all.

"Then let them think as they do. Underestimation is as good a weapon as your hammer once ya learn to wield it properly."

**Sansa**

The Queen in the North had decided to fetch her sister on her own - word had reached her that Arya was rarely alone, occasionally with one of her foreign friends laughing and drinking, but more often with the door locked and the Lord of the Stormlands in her bed. There was no reason why Lord Ryswell or any handmaiden needed to learn this for themselves.

Arya had been recovering for over a week now; Sansa knew it must be driving her mad. She had never been one to sit still, and there was no reason why this would be an exception.

She rounded the corner to her chambers and went to knock on the door, but paused. There was no doubt that Arya was in there. Sansa didn't hear Lord Baratheon's voice, but the noises coming through the walls were not sounds one made on their own. Sansa had never experienced what they were doing, only the painful nights at the mercy of Ramsey, but even the Queen knew these sounds were not were not fit to be heard outside of a whorehouse - unabashed moans and gasps loud and encouraging. They certainly weren't suited to ring through the halls of Winterfell. She sighed and knocked on the door curtly. Her sister either didn't hear her or didn't care.

Sansa walked until she found the nearest handmaiden.

"Noryne," she addressed as the slender woman curtsied. "My sister will be needing fresh sheets. Please bring them to her and inform her that, despite what she may have heard in the West, Braavos, or even Storm's End, a castle is not a brothel." The woman flushed and looked to her hands clasped against her stomach. "Those exact words." Her hazel eyes widened but she nodded and lowered her gaze to her worn shoes.

An hour or two later, Arya found her in her solar, where she was reviewing further reconstruction budgets drafted by her chamberlain. She was dressed in the same leathers she had arrived in, not even caring to tie the laces on her shoulders. Her hair was tied in a quick attempt at a bun, small lumps of hair sticking up where she had failed to smooth them down.

"Sending the handmaiden to do your dirty work?" Arya hissed.

"It worked." Hopefully Gendry would be particularly embarrassed by the mention of his castle's indecency - mayhap that would get them to remember their place. "Besides, I haven't gotten time alone with you since I sat by your bed after the maester first saw to you. Can't you just wait until everyone is asleep?" Arya shrugged and sat in the chair next to Sansa.

"The maester told me I was on bedrest until I finish that tea. Can you make them stop giving me that - give a royal decree or something? I'm so sick of pissing every hour." Crude as ever. The Queen sighed in disapproval.

"It didn't sound like resting." Arya smirked. Sansa sat quietly for a moment, then let herself ask the question that she had wondered when she first heard the impropriety, "Why did I only hear you - shouldn't Lord Baratheon make noise too?" Arya's face seemed to almost contemplate blushing, though it was too subtle to say it acted on it.

"You don't want me to answer that." Sansa coaxed her on with a tilt of her head. "His mouth was… occupied."

"Arya!" Sansa had only heard of such things happening in Littlefinger's brothel back in King's Landing.

The conversation was wicked, but it made her feel much less lonely. These were the types of things normal ladies discussed - this was how Margery Tyrell had spoken with her finely dressed friends in the courtyards of King's Landing.

"You need a consort so you can stop asking every damn detail."

"This isn't Dorne, Arya. How do you think the Northern lords would feel about their queen refusing to marry but galavanting around with a man?"  
"They didn't care when Daenerys did it."

"They didn't care because she doing that with Jon." Arya opened her mouth to argue, but stopped when a serving girl knocked on the door before entering slowly.

"Pardon the interruption your grace. Ser Podrick Payne has arrived and brings updates from the capital."

Sansa thanked her and left to welcome him, turning first to Arya to remind her she ought to come to dinner and that they were to meet the next morning to discuss strategy for bringing troops to the capital.

Podrick was surprisingly clean for a man who had just spent weeks on the road; he must have stopped each night to eat and sleep, sometimes even to bathe.

"Ser Podrick," She greeted with a polite nod as she approached him. "I believe I speak for everyone when I say I was relieved to hear of your escape and Ser Brienne's recovery."

"Thank you, your grace. She is healing quickly and hopes to be able to join the reclamation of the capital." Sansa kept her posture proper but smiled as though he were an old friend. Ser Brienne was the definition of loyalty - her survival may have been the best news in ages.

"I'm glad to hear it. We'll be meeting in the morning to discuss our military tactics - your input would be of great value."

"I'll assist in any way I can, your grace." Podrick smiled softly, though his brown eyes wandered to the wall as he did. "If it isn't beyond my place, might I ask how the King has faired?"

Sansa withheld the deep sigh that attempted to leave her lips and instead nodded stiffly.

"He is well. He takes one meal per day, but would prefer to remain in the Godswood by the heart tree rather than come within the castle walls." That was about as kindly as she could put it. Bran's state concerned her deeply, but there was no use in arguing with him or admitting her agitation to others.

Podrick had spent enough time with the King to know better than to ask further. He pulled his lips into a thin line and gave one slightly distressed nod.

The next morning, Sansa made her way to a cabinet in the Great Keep.

She spotted her sister in the hall arguing with her foreign friend in hushed tones. The taller woman's hands flailed as she spoke, and her dark eyes flashed as though she had been trying to get Arya to hear her point for some time now.

"That's not happening. Not another word of it to me or anyone else." Arya turned on her heel and huffed away towards the cabinet. The other woman easily caught up to her, entering the room at the same time.

Someone had already called Jon, Davos, Gendry, and Palomai - the men were deep in conversation with Podrick when they arrived. The Queen noticed the way Gendry immediately looked to Arya, clearly aware that she was angry - Sansa liked that. Davos nudged him subtly with his elbow until he greeted Sansa with an appropriate "Your grace" before walking over to Arya to find out what was going on. Niiotha rolled her eyes and pushed her lips together while she looked at them, somehow more disappointed when Arya dismissed his concern with a shake of her small head. Gendry sat beside her; the placement of his hand on her thigh was not as well hidden by the table as he thought.

Yuisaraq entered the room with a quiet apology for her tardiness and the rest of them found their seats.

"Thank you for joining me this morning," Sansa said in her most queenly voice. "I trust that such minds as these will easily develop a strategy to reinstate Bran." One of Arya's foreigners sighed at her propriety. If Arya cared about their disrespect, she didn't so much as look at them to keep them in line. "We may no longer hold the capital, but we maintain a number of alliances throughout the kingdoms."

"About that," Ser Davos started. "I'm afraid ravens have brought unfortunate news from the Stormlands. Three of our stronger houses have withdrawn support."

"They can't do that," Gendry objected loudly.

"They can. And they have. Mayhap you and I should meet separately after."

"They're sworn to their Lord Paramount," Arya defended, her hand gripped over Gendry's forearm as if to reassure him.

"A Lord Paramount sitting nearly a thousand leagues away," the lord in question muttered. He shut his eyes briefly before looking to Ser Davos. "Which houses?"

"So far, Connington, Penrose, Trant, and Wylde"

"That's at least fifteen thousand troops to Bronn. Have we heard from Dondarrion?"

"Aye, they were glad to hear of your survival and wished you a hasty recovery - seemed genuine."

"Good. I'll write to them again. We can't afford to lose them." Sansa looked to Arya, sure she would be impressed with Gendry's understanding of his region's military powers. Instead she just studied at the map on the table and chewed the inside of her bottom lip.

"Any word on the armies of the Vale and the Riverlands?" She asked.

"A few houses have written to Winterfell, maybe ten thousand men. Most seem to be staying low until they can follow the clearest winner." She tensed at Jon's response.

"We didn't have the numbers to begin with. Now we have what, fifty thousand at best against a hundred thousand more?"

"The North will send as many men as we can get - you can expect at least thirty thousand." Sansa said.

"It's still not enough." It seemed Arya's pessimism had spread to Jon. "And we won't have a commander for those we do have." He cast his dark eyes towards his hands before looking to Sansa tentatively.

"You're not leading them?"

"I can't. I was already seen the first time. If I go again and someone takes me or I'm exiled somewhere else… I won't risk that, not with Robb and Val." Sansa couldn't argue - Jon had already been away from them for nearly four moon turns.

"What about Bran?" Arya's tone was just as harsh as it had been when Sansa originally opposed intervention with Northern troops the last time she had been home. "Have you ever heard of a successful rebellion that _didn_'t end with the death of the king?" Sansa racked her memories but could not think of a single example.

"We don't know that they'll kill him, he could be exiled."

"Exiled? Bran needs an entire team of people for daily functions and a chair to move, even that's useless on stones or stairs, never mind ice and snow."

"He's survived beyond the wall before."

"And we got back a shell calling himself the Three-Eyed Raven in place of our brother." Her words hung heavily in the air as those around her hesitated to speak ill of the King but fully understood of her meaning.

"You could bring him west," Yuisaraq suggested, her dark eyes soft with sympathy.

"No. Bran needs weirwood trees for his powers - he'd be miserable without them. We'll not bend the knee for Bronn."

The wind outside blew loose snow against the windowpane as if they sat within the midst of a heavy storm. It reminded Sansa of their father; surely he would have found a way out of this. Bran's defenders were outnumbered nearly three to one; armies alone could not win this war. But it was said five hundred men could hold Winterfell against ten thousand, and those odds were worse than what they faced now - perhaps sheer military size was prized too highly.

"What if we didn't need an army?" She asked, thinking aloud. Everyone looked at her as though she were a foolish little girl. "What if we could kill Bronn without thousands of men, with only one person?" She met Arya's eye, and was disappointed to see she looked just as confused as the others. Sansa knew her sister wouldn't like that she was about to reveal one of her secrets, but it would be worth it if it worked. "Your Faceless Men training. You could end him before he knows what's happening."

Everyone's eyes snapped to Arya at once; Gendry's remained on her long after the others had turned away to process what they had heard.

"Braavosi Faceless Men?" Ser Davos asked quietly, as if there were some other group of the same name. Arya bit her lip again and nodded.  
"I haven't done that in a long time."

"But could you?"

She raised her head to meet her eye. "Yes."

"Ser Brienne has connections within the Keep who remain loyal - we can take advantage of them and get you inside," Podrick said.

"You'll need reinforcements in case something goes wrong. I'll request the young Lord Wylmar Dondarrion lead my armies now that Lord Wylde has defected. They can wait on the outskirts of the city."

"That will draw too much attention," Arya protested.

"Not if they claim to be there to negotiate with Bronn." Ser Davos sounded unsure of the moral fortitude of his own suggestion. "The Dornish were promised independence for their shift in allegiance, Lord Wylmar can claim his armies are there in case negotiations go awry." Arya exchanged a strange look with the Onion Knight, then with Gendry before nodding with a sigh.

"We'll come, too," Niiotha said firmly.

"I need you to stay with Bran." Arya's voice was softer, clearly past whatever they had been arguing about in the hall.

"I'm the best fighter." Palomai rolled his eyes at her claim.

"Which is why you need to stay with him here." Niiotha stared into Arya's fierce grey eyes as though to dare her to say more, then resigned with a nod.

"This isn't a good plan - it's too dangerous." Jon's tone sounded almost fatherly.

"It's a better plan than going north of the Wall."

"Alright," Ser Davos stood to intervene. "If Lady Stark is truly trained in the ways of the Faceless Men this may be our best option. Podrick, have you any connections to houses in the Westerlands who might have troops to add?"

"A few, but none well enough that they'd keep a scroll to themselves if they're already sworn to Bronn."

"Best not risk it, then." He turned to Arya, hands clasped behind his back. "Any reason you need to be here to prepare before we go?" She shook her head. "Good. The longer we wait the longer Bronn has to rally forces. If the skies stay as they are today we should be able to leave within the next few days. Lord Manderly has kept an eye on your ship and can get it ready for us as we ride south."

Podrick coughed lightly. "If I may, we ought to take the ship House Tarth acquired for my journey. It's built for speed, and yours is too recognizable."

"Selwyn Tarth granted you a ship?" Davos was impressed.

"Aye, and a crew of five to man it. As far as I know they're still waiting in White Harbor."

"Lord Selwyn is keen when it comes to maritime matters - if he's given you a ship we'd best use it."

"I care more that we get there than how. The Tarth ship is fine." Arya replied flatly.

No one seemed opposed. They agreed to meet in the armory later to stock up on weapons and separated.

The tall foreign woman left first, still mildly offended to be tasked with defending a cripple rather than journeying south with them. The other two followed her. Sansa would be relieved at their departure. The man complained constantly and ate enough food for three men of greater size; Niiotha was boisterous and shameless in how she leered at any male with a decent face; and the quieter woman seemed kind, but Sansa spotted the contempt deep within her eyes. The North didn't need foreigners or their elaborate braids, tattoos, and jewelry making a scene while they tried to rebuild.

Lord Baratheon went to leave next, but lingered at the door for Arya. The younger Stark waited for her brother to notice her glare before she turned and left with the Lord of the Stormlands.

Davos' lips rose in a thin smile as he watched them exit. "Your grace," he nodded to Sansa before leaving with Podrick.

Jon waited for Sansa as the room cleared.

"Can you believe her?" Sansa sighed. Jon and Arya always got along, this was the first he had to endure her anger directed towards him. "A Faceless Man? How long have you known that" They left the Great Keep and crossed through the courtyard. "And what is going on with Gendry? You knew about that too?"

Sansa had known for some time, even before Arya admitted it over wine and snowy winds. It was easy when she first saw them after battling the dead to think that it was innocent, that they had stuck to civility and not acted on whatever attraction was clear between them. But this was Arya, and Arya was never one for decorum. Still, the memory was sweet - too sweet to hold against her sister. It had been a half a day after Arya killed the Night King and Sansa was looking everywhere for her - no one had seen her for hours. She had heard the rumours of too much time near the forges, so she tried them as a last resort. Usually the courtyard would be filled with the sound of roaring fires and singing metal; that day they were eerily silent. Sansa would have turned around upon seeing them empty, but she had never entered the smithy before. Curiosity got the best of her. There was no indication of Arya's presence in the forges left cold or the weapons hanging from the ceilings, but she pressed forward. Finally she came upon two rooms - one was a storeroom, door half open to reveal shelves of sheet metal and ingots, but the other she was unsure of. The door wasn't locked - anyone could have opened it. Mayhap they would have been scandalized had they done so, but for Sansa it was strangely reassuring that there was more to her sister than knives and shadows. Arya and the smith lay in a deep sleep, wrapped in one another's arms like lovers. They slept in only their linens; their leathers had been washed of the blood and gore and hung to dry over chairs and shelves. There was no air of sex between them - no nudity or lust in the way Arya's face was a breath from Gendry's chest or how his hand rested on her back. She hadn't thought much of it - they had just battled the dead for the Sevens' sake, surely they were exhausted - but it all clicked into place when Arya told her they had first bedded the night prior.

"I did," Sansa answered Jon simply.

"Was that why he wrote to her when she was here? Were those messages… romantic?"

"I don't think you can call two scrolls detailing our brother's political happenings as romantic." Jon sighed loudly and looked towards the smithy. "I'm actually going to speak with him now. You'd better seek out Arya - she won't say goodbye if you don't." Jon nodded curtly and left her there in the snowy frozen mud.

Much like that day years earlier, Sansa walked through a mostly empty floor. The smiths of Winterfell were on a rotating schedule now to save iron, wood, and hours; today was a day in which they were to stay home or find work elsewhere. Arya and Gendry stood before the central forge, speaking to one another quickly but softly. They were too far for Sansa to be able to hear what they were saying. Arya's hands hovered between them, like she had been moving them emphatically earlier and stopped when he got too close; his right hand lightly gripped on her shoulder, his left on her waist. Some part of Sansa that she didn't want to indulge felt a twinge of jealousy at the sight - she had never experienced love, and now her difficult little sister was deep within its grasp with a man who adored her. Gendry stopped talking and let Arya finish whatever she was saying. He nodded and said something short, then kissed her forehead lightly and looked down with a small smile. It felt strangely like she was intruding, even though the Queen in the North had a right to go anywhere in her kingdom.

Sansa took a step forward and Arya turned her head to see her, stepping back from him instantly.

"Lord Baratheon, a word?" Arya looked at her skeptically, then sighed exactly as Jon had and left the smithy without a word.

"Your grace." She had never been alone with Gendry before, never even really spoken to him beyond basic pleasantries. It seemed that lordship suited him - his thick, black hair was well brushed and healthy, nearly skimming his shoulders but well washed and without frayed ends. His dark leathers were of a high quality and well fitted to him, but not so well to give the impression of vanity. He was quite handsome, she realized.

"My sister didn't seem particularly pleased."

"Nothing she didn't say in the meeting - she thinks Jon is making a mistake." Of course.

"You two are quite close," Sansa said simply. There was no reason not to speak plainly. Lord Baratheon didn't bother denying it. _Smart_, she thought, especially considering that she had made sure she knew she had overheard them in her chambers the day before. "I'm not sure what you have planned for after we resolve our current issues, but I must ask that you not let her demean the North or our house."

"I have no influence over what she does or how others interpret it." He seemed almost offended by the request.

"Arya acts as she pleases, this is true. Still, she is a Stark, Princess of the North, and sister to the King of the Six Kingdoms."

"Would that not permit her more freedoms?" Sansa felt her brow raise at the insolence in his question. "I do meant offense, your grace, but Arya is Arya - she isn't going to act differently for a kingdom or a house or even her sister." _Or her lover_, he didn't need to say.

Sansa remembered the harsh tone in his voice when Daenerys had spoken to him the night of the feast after their battle. 'I didn't even know he was my father until after he was dead,' he had said defensively, as though he weren't speaking to the Dragon Queen. Sansa looked him in the eye. It was quite blue, deeper in shade than her own. "She is fortunate to have so devoted a lover. I ask only that you not let her bring shame to our house. Some discretion would be appreciated."

"I will do my best to honor that, your grace." _A lie_.

"You've become quite a lord, I was sorry to hear of your sworn lords' betrayal. May they be replaced by more suitable men." Gendry began to thank her, but she left before he could finish. Men were not usually so openly opposed to her requests. It seemed Arya had found herself a partner almost as bold as she.

The Queen in the North walked with her guards to the Great Keep, where she had plenty of work to do with those who wouldn't disrespect her. She could only hope those less compliant would be successful on their mission and remain in the South.


	9. Chapter 9 - The Evenstar

_Chapter 9: Evenstar_

**Podrick**

"Should be to Pebble by nightfall," Ser Davos said as he and Podrick sat in the galley of the _Evenstar_, the ship granted by Lord Sewlyn Tarth.

They had been sailing for three full days after departing White Harbor upon the rise of the waxing moon. Most of his original crew had been lured away with mead and warm, woman-filled beds, but two remained; between them and Davos and Yuisaraq trading off the helm they were making good time. The foreign woman estimated five days left to their journey due to strong winds from the north, though Davos said it was best to plan for half again as many.

Pebble was their first of two scheduled stops before the Capital - a welcome chance to eat some decent food and drink, maybe find a woman or two to warm his own bed.

The mid-day sun shone its warmth from above and the winds were fair - this was a merciful winter day at sea.

Arya and Palomai were sparring on the main deck, feet thumping sporadically above the galley. The foreign man fought with some sort of wooden club with spiked ends - he claimed it was made from the roots of an ironwood tree, but Podrick was skeptical - and occasionally used a knife of bone and steel when he had a free hand. This was hardly the first time Pod had seen Arya fight. Hells, he'd even seen her force Ser Brienne into a draw on multiple occasions, but somehow it never got any less impressive. Her movements were more like water than anything produced by flesh. Even now he could tell how swiftly she moved simply in the fact that he couldn't hear her at all. Palomai's movements were fierce, but Pod could at least recognize his footsteps in the scattered thuds and shuffles coming through the boards over his head; if he hadn't seen it himself before heading down, he would never have known there was a second fighter at all.

Davos cleared their empty bowls from the table and presumably went to consult Yuisaraq on his plan for their arrival.

They docked just before the sun set, its last light pulling long shadows from everything it touched.

"Can we really just leave the ship with just one person?" Arya asked Ser Davos. She looked to Bryndemere, one of the two loyal crew members left, with hesitation.

"Pebble is a small place and its people keep to themselves. There's only one tavern on the whole island, and we're not far from it even here." She pursed her lips and looked to Bryndemere again, then stepped to disembark.

Davos had been right - their destination was only a few minutes' walk from the docks. They ordered a round of ale, two chickens, and a few hand pies before finding a table.

"Lads," Podrick shouted as they took their seats, "and ladies," he added with a nod to Yuisaraq and Arya. "I don't know about you, but I'm planning to be absolutely pissed by the time we get back to the ship."

Surprisingly, it was the small foreign woman who responded most eagerly, raising her tankard into the air in agreement.

"You?" Palomai asked her in disbelief. "I can count the number of times I've seen you drunk with my hands!"

"Guess you'll need to take your shoes off next time you keep track." She clearly thought it was hilarious, but everyone else just seemed confused.

They drank at a reasonable pace at first, until the bitter taste of the old ale became less and less noticeable. By the time the food arrived, Arya was returning with a second round. She sat between Yuisaraq and Gendry; the Lord of the Stormlands' arm instantly slung itself around her shoulder as though there weren't drinks and food to keep it occupied. Podrick no longer found their involvement as sweet as he had in King's Landing or when strategizing at Winterfell - the long stares and noises emitted from their cabin were only bearable for so long.

"Anyone know a decent drinking game?" The Bringer of the Dawn asked before stuffing her face with a leg of herbed chicken.

Podrick thought of Tyrion's and found the memory made his chest ache a little more than he expected. He took a long gulp of ale and decided he'd rather not play that one.

"There's He Shall," Palomai suggested.

"That's only good when you know each other."

"I think we know one another fairly well by now." Davos seemed an optimist, though he was still nursing his first ale.

Palomai explained the game: one person would state an action, the more absurd the better, and everyone would select whomever they thought the most likely to do it, then people drank once for each person who had indicated them. It seemed fun enough, so they agreed to try it.

"Sink the ship," Yuisaraq began. Palomai had three people's vote, Yuisaraq one, and Arya two. To Podrick's horror, Mellyndon, the second crew member, pointed to him. "Me?" He objected.

"You drink more when you defend." Arya tilted her head as she said it; clearly she enjoyed knowing more about this game than they did. Podrick took two long drinks and went for a hand pie.

"Drag me to a foreign continent where no one bathes," Palomai said flatly. Arya shrugged and drank six times as everyone pointed to her. She pointed to herself when she was done and drank a seventh time. Gendry laughed harder than the others - _It really wasn't that funny_ \- and pulled her closer to him.

It was Pod's turn, but he couldn't think of anything good. "Not keep their drink down?" He tried. One for him, two for Arya, two for Yuisaraq, one for Gendry, one for Palomai.

"Visit a whorehouse tonight." Four for him, two for Mellyndon, and one clearly unfamiliar vote for Davos from Palomai.

"Regret tonight's ale tomorrow," the Onion Knight said with a knowing tone. Podrick knew he participated for their morale more than any desire to drink - his tankard was still half-full as was. Three for Davos, one for Arya, one for Palomai, two for Yuisaraq.

"Switch to wine on the next round."

That's a terrible one," Arya said to Gendry before anyone had even pointed. Yuisaraq drank six times and Mellyndon once.

"Die before we get to King's Landing," it was Lady Stark's turn. _Lady Stark_, that didn't quite sound right in his mind. Was Arya a knight? Why hadn't she been made a Ser after the Long Night?

"And that's better?" Gendry moved his arm from around her to dramatically cross it beneath his other and raise his brow in judgment.

"Best not be you." Arya said before drinking while everyone else stared; they were clearly unsure if indicating someone would be a death wish. "So boring," she muttered at their dithering.

They played another round before getting more drinks. Palomai was the first to seem drunk - his biting commentary picked up more humor, though his words were still harsh. Arya wasn't far behind him; her cheeks were beginning to look warmer and a smile graced her face a little too often.

After an hour, they grew tired of pointing and moved onto a less personal game Yuisaraq suggested. A serving girl brought a tray of every beverage in the tavern - two full tankards each of ale, rum, mead, Dornish red wine, brandy, honeyed wine, Arbor Gold, mulled wine, a darker beer specially imported from Widow's Watch, and water.

Arya pulled aside the serving girl almost violently after she set down the tankards.

"Are those Braavosi crab cakes?" She asked, pointing towards a plate on a table across the tavern.

The woman nodded and stared at Arya's tight grip on her arm. "Our cook is from Braavos and makes them when we have the goods."

"We'll take some." Her eyes widened with excitement and the serving girl hurried off to fetch them. "I've been dreaming about these for weeks."

"What's in them?"

"Crab, flour, egg, lemon, pulverized bread, hot peppers, some cheese, sometimes cabbage."

"Sounds revolting."

"They are." Ser Davos responded.

The serving girl had scarcely placed the plate down before Arya grabbed at it as fast as she normally moved with her dagger.

"Keep them," Palomai said as he wrinkled his nose upon trying one. Arya ignored him, her hands already shoveling a second towards her face.

"Back to the drinking." Podrick didn't want to wait around for everyone to assess the strange dish before them.

"We need a coin," Yuisaraq explained, "Flip it to see who decides which to drink. The person who chooses cannot decide how long. Example: When Arya stops eating long enough to turn the coin, then if it lands as she says she gets to decide which drink the victim has to choose. If she is wrong, she chooses how long they drink."

"How do we know who drinks?"

"Whoever picks the number in the last drinker's head."

It made more sense after a few trial rounds. This got them far drunker than the other game.

Podrick nearly choked on brandy he expected to be ale until Gendry finished counting. The din of the tavern became almost comforting the more their drinks flowed.

"You're so much more fun drunk," Palomai slurred to Yuisaraq with a grin. "Why didn't we do this on the sail north?"

"We did. Niiotha taught this to me." _Niiotha_. Pod wondered what she was up to in Winterfell. They had fucked again the night he got to the castle, but she seemed almost uninterested by the second time he came to her room. It was fair, he preferred switching the woman in his bed as it was, but it certainly gave him pause.

"Did you know Niiotha's teaching drinking games now?" Palomai asked Arya. She didn't hear him, distracted instead by something Gendry was whispering to her. She looked at him lustily and smirked, then reached for a random cup in the line in front of her.

"Six," Mellyndon shouted even though it wasn't either of their turns. Arya cringed after her first gulp but kept going until Mellyndon closed his hand.

"Honeyed wine," she said with disgust.

A pretty enough girl with shoulder-length auburn curls held back by a green ribbon swept a broken cup up in the corner. Podrick waited until she looked his way and smiled lightly when her eyes met his; she smiled back before hurrying back to the kitchen to dispose of the shards. He'd be with her by the end of the night, he was sure of it.

Mellyndon departed to see if Pebble contained any brothels - Ser Davos doubted it but didn't actually know - and Yuisaraq slept slumped against the table, her fingers still clenched around the handle of her tankard. The bench beside her was empty. _When did Arya and Gendry leave?_

He looked at their empty seats and back to Davos.

"How can anyone fuck so much?" Even for Pod, it was excessive. He knew there was nothing to do on that damn ship; he'd considered the same, except the only two women were Arya and Yuisaraq and the former was not an option, and the latter clearly only desired to steer or feel the cold ocean on her face.

"Comin' from you, lad? I do live in the Capital, ya know. From what I hear, your nethers work their magic in the brothels near daily."

Podrick didn't bother fighting the grin that took over his face. "Not with the same person, though," he clarified.

Davos shrugged. "They're young and healthy. At this point we're just lucky those two are keeping things to their cabin."

"They're not." Palomai pointed his lips at the corner table against the back wall. If Podrick didn't know both of them, he'd have thought he had stumbled into a brothel. Arya straddled Gendry and practically attacked him with her face; the shadows they doubtless thought hid them shrouded only their legs and her back.

Davos sighed. "Youth at its arrogant best," he said while shaking his head.

Podrick looked away from the disarray in the corner and found the comely serving girl again. She met his gaze first this time and he smirked back. She would definitely do.

Davos got up and shook out a stiff knee before bidding them a good night. "We set sail at dawn," he reminded.

Arya was suddenly seated beside Yuisaraq again. She grabbed the tankard of Dornish red and finished it quickly before looking to a dazed-seeming Gendry still seated in the corner and cocking her head towards the exit.

The pretty serving girl brought Podrick a new ale and he took it with him as he followed her to some beds in the back. Maybe this mission wasn't so bad after all.

.

Morning came as fast as lightning.

Podrick's head killed him and his stomach lurched with each rock of the ship. Worse yet, he could hear the faint but salient sound of someone fucking through the far wall. Moans were fantastic when they came from his bed, but anyone else's made him strangely unquiet.

He sat up and groaned as the night came back to him - Ysilla in that soft bed in the tavern, stumbling back to the ship afterwards with Yuisaraq and Palomai, Arya and Gendry shamelessly half-fucking in the corner - that must be who he heard now. If Yuisaraq was right, and Pod hoped her estimate was closer than Davos', they were less than a week from King's Landing.

The sliver of light pouring through his small window was blinding, but blinding light was better than listening to other people fuck. Pod slowly pulled on his clothing and armour, then braved the deck to begin his day.

It was colder than it had been the day before. Cold mist and seawater sprayed the ropes and coated the wood in a slippery glaze sure to break someone's neck by nightfall.

Yuisaraq made it clear on their very first day that she would not allow anyone but Arya, Palomai, and Davos to help with sailing. Even Mellyndon had to argue for a place, and it was more his ship than hers. Fewer duties were fine with Pod - he had swordwork to practice.

He sparred with Bryndemere, though the sailor was a poor partner who made a wide target and thrust too much with his shoulder. The night prior's drink made its way out of him with each droplet of sweat. By mid-afternoon, Podrick felt almost himself again.

Their watch shifts were roughly four hours each - six per day, each with two watchers. Pod usually went after Mellyndon. Arya had the other watch that afternoon, and sat on the railing of the quarterdeck; Gendry was keeping her company, though her eyes never left the horizon.

"So, what makes a woman cross the sea to visit Westeros?" Yuisaraq was lazily steering the tiller, occasionally holding her left hand up to measure something in the sky. She turned back at him upon hearing the question.

"What makes a man ride through snow and ice to give up his ship?" He paused. Did she know the words "duty" or "honor?" If she didn't, could he even begin to explain them?

She nodded her sharp jaw towards Arya.

"She's unique, certainly, but I'm not sure I'd follow her across the open oceans." Pod was sure, actually - he wouldn't.

"She's family." Her ample lips pulled into a smile after she spoke.

_Family_. It was an interesting choice of words. Mayhap he ought to consider it the next time someone asked why he was so devoted to Ser Brienne.

"Don't you get sick of that?" He looked to where Gendry leaned beside her, his left arm wrapped around her waist.

Yuisaraq looked at him oddly. "Many never know such a love. I think it's beauteous." That made too many romantics on the ship for Podrick's tastes. The woman looked distantly to the sea for a moment before lifting her hand again to see whatever it was she could measure in the clouds.

Pod surveyed her appearance. It was clear that she wasn't interested in him the way her fellow foreign friend had been, but that didn't mean he couldn't wonder. She was small, barely any larger than Arya, with a full bosom, slender limbs, and square hips. Her face was nearly perfectly symmetrical, with high cheeks and a defined jaw, the flat and broad nose suited sher face, and her eyes were small and as dark as charcoal. It was her lips that intrigued him the most, full and a pinker brown than her glowing skin; the sharp bow atop her mouth stood out as though it had been traced in gold.

"You're supposed to be looking for aft-following ships." He nodded and went back to his watch.

The crew met that night to discuss strategy - Arya's knowledge of the tunnels of King's Landing was outdated, so Davos and Pod tried to draw out the new construction as best they could. When night came, Podrick found himself grateful for a chance to recover further before they landed in Gulltown.

The _Evenstar_ arrived in the port just after midday. Thick grey walls rose high and belted the city in slabs of stone; occasional gusts of air drifting from over the walls carried scents of wine, spices, and a slight undertone of spoiled fish.

Once they had docked, they agreed to spend less time in the city than they had in Pebble. Davos mainly wanted to restock on maritime goods, and Palomai wanted to replenish their ale and wine storage - Podrick just hoped there'd be enough time to stop at a brothel.

He slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way up the stairs to the main deck. Arya emerged a moment later, wearing a jerkin tighter than any Podrick had seen on her before. He shook his head lightly and looked to where Palomai leaned against the rigging. Arya pushed herself up onto the railing and swayed her feet in the air.

"Coming?" Podrick asked her.

Arya shook her head. "I'm taking Palomai's watch - too many people here to risk leaving the ship. And after last time I'd better give it a rest." She looked to Gendry with guilty eyes. Podrick had seen them when he returned from Pebble, Arya vomiting up her drinks off the side of the ship, Gendry rubbing her back and shooting a laughing Palomai a stare sharper than anything he had ever smithed.

"Told you you couldn't keep up with us," the foreign man said with a shrug.

"Do you want me to stay?" Gendry asked her lightly. Pod did his best not to scoff. Arya shook her head and asked him to bring her a hand pie when he returned; she let him kiss her before they disembarked. _Sickening_.

If someone had told Podrick that the Bringer of the Dawn would be kissing in public or that the dauntless blacksmith who made thousands of weapons to bring down the army of the dead would be more smitten than the maidens of the King's Landing, he would have assumed them mad. Now he had to bare witness with his own eyes.

They made their way to through the towering walls and into the thriving city. Gulltown was ten times the size of Pebble, and more diverse than Podrick had expected. Voices rang out in the Common Tongue, Lhazareen, and Braavosi; women roamed the streets in groups, many draped in fine scarves of various bright colors.

There was no shortage of taverns available - the first was too full, the second too pricey, and the third too filthy. Their fourth option seemed best. Davos left to replenish their rope stores, leaving Podrick, Bryndemere, Palomai, and Gendry to their business. Soon wine, mouthwatering eel stew, and a Braavosi flatbread topped with caramelized onions and figs graced their stomachs.

They played no drinking games this time, but drunkenness came almost as easily. Bryndemere slurred his words lazily; Gendry seemed more exhausted than intoxicated, but his reflexes were slow and he smiled doltishly when lost in his thoughts; Palomai snorted when he laughed.

When they were sick of drinking, Pod and Gendry put down a few silver stags and made their way to the streets. The sun had yet to set when they emerged - they still had an hour, maybe two.

"Anyone else fancy a trip to a brothel?"

"Brothel?" Palomai asked.

"Whores. Good sex with great women for a few coins." The man's face paused in consideration.

"I have no use for women, great or otherwise. Do men do the same?" So Palomai preferred the company of men to women…. It didn't concern Pod what the man did with his cock, so he shrugged.

"Not sure - some do. You can find out." He turned to Gendry, who was drunkenly swaying to his left. "You coming?"

Gendry looked at him like he had asked if he fancied a knife to the gut.

"Oh come on, you two have been going at it for ages now. You must want something different."

"I really don't." _A love drunk fool_, Podrick thought. There was no way sleeping with one woman was that exhilarating.

"What's it like? I mean, I've never really imagined Arya like that, I can't picture it." Actually he almost could, and that bothered him more than anything he had seen or heard the two of them doing. Between her tighter clothes and the sounds that drifted from her cabin, it was a little too easy to -

"Good. Don't." Gendry seemed protective, as if they hadn't all seen Arya's tongue down his throat in Pebble.

"Better get it out of your system while she's still here," Palomai slurred slightly.

"What?"

"Before she goes west again." The smith's face dropped as though Palomai had struck him. "She didn't tell you?" He didn't respond, just looked down at the dirt road below them.

"So… brothel?" Podrick asked again. Bryndemere nodded and Palomai did the same; Gendry turned to slowly walk back to the ship, fists still clenched by his hips.

Pod paid him no mind, and they made their way down mud-covered streets until they reached a red door and entered with haste.

.

When they returned to the ship, more noise rose from Arya's cabin, though this time it seemed out of anger rather than lust.

"I'm sure we'll manage," she sneered icily as the door opened. Gendry slammed it shut and caught his eye.

"Women," Podrick tried to commiserate. He met his words with a disgusted glare and stumbled up the stairs to relieve Yuisaraq of her watch. This didn't surprise Pod - any time two people fucked as much as they did they were bound to fight eventually.

A moment later, Yuisaraq lightly bound down the stairs and entered Arya's bunk carrying a small bundle of fabric. Pod wondered how she had known so quickly. They were three days from the capital - at least he wouldn't hear them fucking for a while.

.

.

.

A/N: Thank you all so much for the reviews, favorites, and subscriptions! I want to mention for anyone unaware that "The Evenstar" is what the Lords of Tarth are called - I'm not stealing from Tolkien (But GRRM may have been).


	10. Chapter 10 - King's Landing III

_Chapter X: King's Landing III_

**Gendry**

The tunnels smelled as though the worst parts of King's Landing had been concentrated into one foul stench. It made sense, in a way, considering they were filled with the run off of most of the Capital's dumped waste. Gendry tried not to think about what the water pooling along the edges might have once been and continued forward.

They had left Podrick at the tunnel's opening to keep the dinghy and entrance safe from any passersby. Gendry would be the next to break off from the group, where he would guard the exit of the tunnel so they might sprint back once the deed had been done.

Arya walked in front of him with her shoulders held stiffly and kept forcing her fists to relax - she was nervous. Gendry gently clasped his hand around her small wrist and lightly tugged for her to hang back for a moment. A series of tunnels unfolded on both sides of the main passageway; he chose the one less likely to be where the Keep dumped the contents of their garderobe. Surprisingly, she followed.

"You alright?" Gendry asked her when they had gotten out of sight. It was a ludicrous question - nothing was alright, not the plan, not her being nervous, not the fact that they hadn't spoken in days. She nodded despite the absurdity and looked back to where the others waited past the wall. "You don't seem it." Arya bit the inside of her lip just enough for it to shrink slightly on the left side, then met his eyes.

"I'm fine." He placed a hand on her right shoulder and was pleased that she didn't seem to mind. "I just… don't know him - I don't know what his voice sounds like, or whether he fights leading with his hips or shoulders, or -"

He didn't let her finish. "You just need to be him enough to get in and out. You'll be alright." Her grey eyes faltered to something behind hm as she went back to chewing her lip. "Arya," Gendry said softly. He risked cupping her cheek, "You're a trained faceless assassin - this will be easy for you." Though he tried to smile to reassure her, his lips only twitched.

Gendry interrupted her sigh with a light kiss. Remarkably, she kissed him back - that seemed like a decent sign. It was brief, but seemed to work well enough to calm her a little. She nodded and they returned back to Yuisaraq and Palomai. The man scoffed but the woman gave a knowing smile.

A thin iron gate blocked the tunnel opening. Palomai slammed it once with his club to destroy it; Arya grabbed his arm before he could swing a second time. "Are you mad?! Too loud."

Gendry approached the gate and looked it over. The pieces had been connected by drawing and welding, but they had been rushed. He grabbed two of the more poorly made pieces and pulled the thinnest ones towards him; they bent easily, and he got a enough of a grip on the rough metal to wedge the frame out in one solid heave.

Arya tried to go first, but Gendry held her back firmly by the arm - the plan was for Palomai to check the surroundings before the exited. She shot him a steely glare, clearly unhappy to be stopped, and shrugged out of his grasp as she waited for Palomai to climb up the opening.

A few minutes passed - _too long_ \- and the man stuck his head down into the tunnel. "We're fine," he said before disappearing again. They emerged under a bridge abutment, dark trees and shrubbery hiding the entryway to the tunnel. An armour-clad body had been roughly tucked under a grove of bushes a few feet to the north. Gendry looked with contempt from the corpse to Palomai - this was going to be his issue now that they had reached his sunderpoint.

Arya wore her focused expression again, the same one she had worn long ago when she practiced her water dancing or studied their stolen map as a child on the kingsroad. She glanced Gendry over briefly and he felt his brows raise in a sort of half-smile; it dropped the moment they headed towards the Keep. He knew the plan well enough by now - Palomai would go with them as far as he could without notice, then the two women would enter the castle, find Brienne's recommended soldier, and Arya would enter the Keep with his face. From there it would all be improvisation. There was no sense in Arya's disquiet; she had killed the fucking Night King after all, Bronn should be easy by comparison.

Still, that same sense of unease began growing in Gendry's chest as soon as he watched them disappear beyond a hill. There was no method of learning what was happening, no way to know if he should run to the castle to help or back to Podrick to send word to the Stormlands' troops waiting on the city outskirts. No, there was no use in thinking about that - Arya would be fine. She'd go in, cut Bronn's throat, and get out. It was a easy as smithing a nail.

A few smallfolk crested the hill they had descended, but no soldiers appeared and no one seemed aware of that a man's body lay shrouded under the dark, shiny-leafed bushes. Gendry leaned against the jutting stone and took a deep breath.

Arya was still angry with him, rightfully so. He really ought to have apologized before they left the ship, but she had avoided him too well for him to attempt that. If anything happened to her before he had a chance to fix things… _She'll be fine_, he reminded himself.

Gendry had never known himself to be cruel, not even in the aftermath of the Red Woman, when every redheaded stranger who smiled at him made his stomach turn and chills prick his skin. He had a temper at times, mayhap, but he never acted to injure anyone's feelings.

The drink was not to blame - his usual drunken tendency was the opposite of whatever he was that night, especially where Arya was concerned. Until then, being in his cups just meant he slurred accolades of her beauty and how much it intrigued him that she could probably kill him in the time it took for him to blink.

No, that night had shown a side of himself he didn't really know existed, a side of insecurity twisted up with doubts and deception and heartbreak. He hadn't meant it, really, and he certainly never expected her to actually care what he said. Palomai's casual mention of the fact that she was planing to go West again just burned at his mind - did she even plan to say goodbye to him? Was she just going to leave in the night, like she had after his idiotic proposal in Winterfell?

Gendry had confronted her the second he boarded the ship. She had the audacity to smile lightly at him when she saw him approach. _All part of the ploy._ Arya followed him after stormed past her into their cabin, shutting the door too hard even though he knew she was behind him. When she opened it, her smile was replaced by a fury that rivaled his house words and she demanded to know what was going on.

"Shouldn't you be able to figure that out? Fancy assassin training and all?" That was _another_ thing she hadn't told him. Davos explained the Faceless Men to him one day on the ride to White Harbor - men who could change their face like he might change clothes or tools. And he hadn't even asked her about it, hadn't wanted to pry. _A fucking fool through and through. _

"Either tell me or shut up and get over it."

"You think you're so different," he sneered. "But you use people just like every other highborn. Were you even going to tell me?"

Anger poured out of her glare. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Just going to sail west when you need something new?" Her lips closed together, eyes still deadly. The words boiled up then like molten resentment, "For fuck's sake, Arya. You knew how I felt - you _knew_ I love you, and you still just did what you wanted without any care for how I'd wind up."

"_I_ did what I wanted?" She was stalling, repeating his words back to him to give herself more time. "I told you it was a bad idea - I told you Dorne wouldn't like it, your lords would take issue, it was stupid." _She never said a damn one of those things_. She had just shown up in his forge without any notice, looking all perfect and asking about his wife like she knew he had already forgotten about his half-negotiated betrothal. Then, once he tried to do his damn lordly duties, she'd stared at him and caressed his shirt until his brain stopped working entirely and kissed him - and that was _before_ she played that stupid game and talked about the other people she had fucked not being him. She never even tried to stop a damn thing. And now she was telling him it was stupid?

"Stupid? That's really all you can say? 'Stupid' is for children - we might have started a war."

"Don't flatter yourself," she scoffed. "Dorne allied with Bronn for independence, they didn't care about you and your precious Lady Dayne. None of this has to do with us or your inability to control yourself." _Inability to control yourself,_ like she hadn't almost fucked him in that tavern in Pebble two days prior. Fucking hypocrite.

"Control myself? That's rich. Have you ever thought something through before you did it? Ever faced a consequence in your entire life?" She scoffed at his question and he thought of how her sister, the damn Queen in the North, even had to try to get him to make sure Arya didn't disgrace their house. "What if something had gone wrong? What if you showed up in Storm's End and I actually _was_ married? What if your moon tea didn't work?"

For just a fraction of a second, her face dropped. "That would be as much your fault as mine."

"Yeah, sure," he fired back sarcastically, unsure which point she was responding to. "And what would you have done? Stabbed my wife? Shown up and watched from the shadows until you remembered I didn't matter? Gone and sailed off and threw our child to the first woman you saw in the West?" She didn't answer him, just glowered with all the icy wrath of the North. "I don't know what I was thinking would happen - you'll never care about anyone but yourself."

He knew he went too far the second her face shifted. Betrayal washed over the angry scowl, her eyes softened then sank deep as tears rose around them, and her lips opened to inhale an unsteady breath. He stared at her, half wanting to pull her into his arms but still too angry to move - she stared back until her lids finally closed for one heartbeat. When they opened again they were sharper than any sword to ever come from his foundry.

"Go," she said, her voice soft but firm.

He did not move. It was just as much his cabin as hers and he wasn't done with whatever they were doing.

"Fucking go." She repeated, angrier this time.

She went for her still-packed satchel when he stood still, so he launched himself towards the door to leave first.

"You do know we're on a ship, right? You're going to have to see me again." His heart felt raw though the words still came out bitter.

She glared at him - he ignored the pain shimmering beneath her rage. "I'm sure we'll manage." Sarcasm dripped from each word like venom from a snake's fangs.

And then fucking Podrick had tried to commiserate, like whatever "women" he referred to had anything to do with the infuriating, terrifying, awe-inspiring, addictive qualities that made him furious with Arya.

Yuisaraq was on first watch when he arrived and offered to take her place.

"You're drunk," she observed. He didn't bother denying it. "Can you see straight?" Gendry felt his eyes roll, an obnoxious habit he had picked up from Arya. Yuisaraq shrugged.

"Wait," Gendry called as she started towards the stairs. He still had Arya's stupid hand pie and one of those awful-smelling Braavosi crab things wrapped up in his bag. "Forgot to give these to her."

Her mouth curled softly while she took them from him. "She'll come around," she said over her shoulder before heading below deck.

The first watch went fine, Davos steered from the helm while Gendry fumed at the prow, grateful that Palomai didn't say a word to him and left when he realized he really was there to watch for ships and not just to sleep or fight.

Arya had second watch, but she must have seen him and decided he ought to take her shift too.

It was just after dawn when Davos came up to him and firmly suggested he get some rest rather than jump into three watches in a row; "You're no good dead on your feet," he said gruffly. When Gendry returned to his empty cabin, he found his bed had grown too large and somehow now felt both hard as stone and soft as loose sand. The waves of anger had dissipated somewhere between his shifts, drifted off to sea like he had tossed them into the waves below, but they left his chest feeling cloven in twain. It was pathetic, just lying there with his eyes open, hoping the open window might blow her scent away from the sheets and pillows long enough for him to fall asleep. It didn't.

He saw her only thrice more on the remainder of the journey, once when she emerged from Yuisaraq's room that evening at the same time that he was returning from the galley. He avoided her gaze and kept his face hard as she passed him, but the redness in her eyes seemed brighter than steel mid-forge. It wasn't about him, he told himself. She was probably just reacting to the sea air or upset about the possibility of their plan failing - Arya Stark didn't cry about a few words shouted by a bastard smith. Still, when he finally managed to sleep that night his dreams were filled with tears and light sobs lost amongst quick arrows and slicing swords.

The second time, they stood as far apart as possible while everyone discussed the contingency plan should Arya fail. She wouldn't - she always got what she wanted - so Gendry didn't bother paying attention. Their eyes never met throughout the entire meeting.

Later that night, he returned to the cabin exhausted from inventorying their weapon stock and going over the maps of recently dug tunnels in King's Landing. Interestingly, Arya was there, digging through the contents of her bags when he arrived. She snapped her head up in surprise. _Impossible_ \- she would have heard him coming, must have heard him pause at Yuisaraq's door to swallow down the guilt rising like hot bile before opening his own instead.

"Thought you were with them," he said stiffly to the air before turning back again to exit.

"What's the count?" He hadn't realized she knew what he'd been doing.

"Fourscore arrows to split between you, Palomai, and Podrick; three bows; three daggers; a dozen throwing knives; six shields, but a few of them are too bent - I think four are salvageable; and three broadswords."

She nodded and the air between them began to feel less stale.

"I know you want them all, but maybe stick to just twice your own weight." She chuckled quietly and his heart rose back almost to where it should have been. He turned to face her then, already picturing the small smile etched into his mind.

That smile drifted from her face like the last rays of the sun, all the warmth and light of the world fading with it.

"What will you use?" He just wanted Arya to speak again.

Gendry stepped closer and she stopped to look at him. She appeared contemplative, like she couldn't figure out if she should embrace him or slit his throat.

"Don't know yet… Probably the dagger. I'll need to get close. I don't think I can bring the patalpeq or Needle - too recognizable when I wear a face." He nodded as if he had any idea what wearing a face was like at all.

"I'd like to bring a bow and a sword too, maybe a staff."

"That's all?" She was listing a damn armory.

A small, second laugh hid within her exhalation. It sounded almost accidental, but Gendry's breathing came easily for the first time since their fight. She looked him over again.

Arya could end his life if she wanted, he had made his own choice. He crossed the three steps to where she stood and kissed her, relieved to feel her return it instantly. It was all fire and need - no words, no apologies, no tears.

Her teeth bit his lip as she immediately shoved her hands under his jerkin. The wall wasn't far from them. He backed her against it and slid his hands to her full backside to push her closer; she instantly locked him into place by lifting herself up and wrapping her legs around him. His mouth moved to her soft neck, but he realized wanted her lips again and went back after just a graze. Then, before it had even properly begun, she pushed him away from her, slid both feet down to the ground, and clenched her fists. There wasn't time to ask what was happening - she had already walked to the door.

"No." It sounded more like she needed to stop herself than him. "You're not just fucking your way out of this"

She didn't speak to him again until he pulled her aside in the tunnel. She had returned his kiss then, at least, but he had a sneaking suspicion that was more out of instinct than any actual affection.

Gendry shook his head and tried again to focus on the situation before him but his fight with Arya was like the exposed grains of a poorly forged blade, a weakness built into the thing's very being. They'd leave this place and handle it later - either Arya would sail west or she wouldn't. There was no sense in imagining anything specific, good or bad, until he knew what she wanted, and he couldn't know what she wanted until she was safely back on the ship.

.

.

.

**Arya**

This was the third time Arya had been to the King's Landing since its reconstruction, and still it somehow felt both entirely foreign and eerily reminiscent of the time it had nearly swallowed her whole. She and Yuisaraq were nearing the castle, having just had left Palomai at a gate to the east. He'd meet them again at a point Podrick had helped designate with the assumption that they couldn't go back the way they had entered. Arya just hoped they'd get the timing right. She was still almost as mad at Palomai as she was at Gendry, but he was fast and swung his ironwood _nizid_ without question - he'd get to their position quickly enough.

She had nearly strangled him when he mentioned what he had told Gendry in Gulltown. It was true she had promised him that she would bring him back to Mandoosatook, but she had certainly never specified when. Then again, Gendry's ridiculous reaction was enough to make her consider sailing west anyways, or at least going as far away as she could until he found his senses again. His reaction was more than uncalled for, it was self-centered and desperate - could this be a minacious glimpse of how he would always react when he felt hurt?

His words would have been duller had she not been thinking the same just before he returned to the ship. She was selfish, she did choose herself too often - she had left her brother vulnerable in the Capital and her sister alone in the North so she might adventure in the West like she was free of any obligation or duty.

Arya flexed her hands to keep them at her sides as she thought of what Niiotha had tried to convince her of in Winterfell… It wasn't true - it couldn't be - but if it was, she wasn't sure when she'd be able to return her friend to his home at all.  
Yuisaraq interrupted her thoughts with a hand across their path.

"Is that him?" She pointed her lips towards a short, stocky man with a head of sparse black curls and a week's worth of stubble. He matched the description of Ser Nyles Cockshaw from Ser Brienne's raven, a knight brought from the Reach by Bronn's command. It seemed safe to wager that he would not be questioned wherever he went. The connection who had sent the information regarding the knight would also make sure the whitecloaks avoided the beaches and tunnels while they waited. Arya nodded - it was him.

Davos and Podrick had decided a bow and quiver would be too suspicious for her later disguise, but she wished she had ignored them. It would be easy to dispatch him with one shot. Instead, they were crouched below an exposed walkway with no plan for how to isolate the man whose face she needed.

Yuisaraq was many things - a sailor, a strategist, a fighter, to name a few - but she knew how to use her beauty as a weapon just as effectively as she threw her knives. She climbed up and approached the man sweetly, as though he were a long lost lover or childhood friend. She spoke in Baqabataral, her native tongue, to add a layer of confusion. The man hardly seemed to notice that she wasn't speaking the Common Tongue, he just nodded and smiled blankly until she cocked her head towards the door. He looked around to be sure no one noticed, then left his post to show her inside. Arya snuck behind them quickly and slit his throat as soon as she got behind him.

Wearing a face was more difficult than people realized - there were dozens of steps, any of which could cause the illusion to fall apart; wearing a face hastily sliced away amidst enemy territory was even more difficult. Arya hadn't done this since Walder Frey, and there was no room to devote to the full detail of the process. She did the best she could given the circumstances.

There were many secrets to being a Faceless Man, some of which involved magic, but truly it was mostly a trick. Much of the act was simple mummery and observation. People gave up so many details that it often seemed as though they _wanted_ to be impersonated - they spoke of their fears and their memories and wore their emotions on their face for all to see. Unfortunately, Ser Nyles had done none of these, so she would need to be especially cautious.

Yuisaraq seemed to believe the illusion well enough - her narrow eyes rounded at the sight of the man she had just seen killed now walking the corridor before her. They wandered aimlessly for a bit, trying to think of where Bronn might be. Arya was sure he'd be in his chambers - his love of brothels was nearly as well known as King Robert's, and the former king always had his working women brought to him - but they were empty. Although occasional soldiers wearing armour of the Reach and Dorne shuffled by, there did not seem to be many meetings taking place.

Arya wondered what had happened with Lord Wylmar Dondarrion, mayhap he was meeting with Bronn as suggested back in Winterfell. Davos had mentioned on the Evenstar that Lord Wylmar was set to be in position, ready to send in a few thousand men if they needed. She hoped they wouldn't - not only because of the obvious fact that would mean they failed, but also because that would mean Gendry would not return to Winterfell with them. As angry and wounded as she felt, she wasn't quite ready for him to disappear entirely.

The cabinets on the first two floors were empty, as was the throne room. Finally they came across two soldiers guarding a door.

"Bronn in there?" Arya asked gruffly. Surely a man of Cockshaw's level would ask without any superfluous information or greeting.

The guard to the right looked at them strangely, focusing on Yuisaraq then back to Cockshaw.

"Bringin' her to him," she extemporized. The guards exchanged a shrug and informed them that Bronn was meeting with some lords in the North Wing.

There were four cabinets and three chambers in the North Wing. The cabinets were all empty, as was the first solar. Finally Arya recognized the sound of raucous laughter coming from a room on the far side of the corridor. Cockshaw's face was starting to feel wrong, it slipped around the corners and made everything too hot. She grimaced and approached the door.

There were four men in the room - one whose voice she couldn't place but knew was familiar, two who sounded Dornish by their accents, and one she was fairly certain was Bronn. The thick oaken door was lighter than she expected, and the secrecy was immediately lost. The men all turned to look at the door as it flew open. She looked to Yuisaraq in a panic.

"Find another way in." Her friend looked at her like she had just told her to make snow fall in a desert. "Lord Wylde is there - he'll recognize you."

"Cockshaw?" Bronn called. Arya tore her eyes from Yuisaraq's and entered slowly to buy them time. To her horror, Yuisaraq followed.

"This one said you sent for her," she muttered. Her command of his voice was slipping - why hadn't she taken a day to follow him and learn his habits?

"Didn't send for no one." Yuisaraq unlaced her vest slightly and stepped into the light. The distraction was a welcome chance to analyze the men before them - Lord Wylde looked just as he had in Storm's End, older than he was and much less comely than his younger brother; the two Dornish lords were near opposites of one another, one dark with thick black waves and eyes as dark as night, the other towheaded with eyes of violet - _a Dayne_.

Lord Wylde looked at her strangely. "I know you," he said quietly. Arya tried to keep her face straight.

"I wish that were so, my lord. I've been sent as a gift for the King." His forehead creased as he ran a hand through his thinning blond locks and tried to identify how he knew her. Bronn needed no convincing. He stood immediately and walked towards a door in the back of the room. The Dornishman Arya could not identify poured two glasses of wine, one for Cockshaw and one for Yuisaraq, and offered them without a word. She took them and used it as an excuse to go into the bedchambers.

"Your Grace," Lord Wylde started.

Bronn shot him a glare and looked back to Yuisaraq. "I'll be in in a moment - you'll be ready." Arya did her best to keep her eyes from rolling.

"Yes, my king," Yuisaraq purred. Arya realized that she didn't know the proper title was 'Your Grace.' If the other lords cared they gave no indication.

The two women had entered the chambers and the goblets found their place on a worn bedside table.

"Why did you come in? Did you not hear me about Lord Wylde?" Yuisaraq's head tilted in confusion. "He sat right beside Davos in the Stormlands. We dined with him and his brother twice."

"All the men here look the same to me." She shrugged. Arya opened her mouth to ask if she included Gendry in that statement - he had certainly never looked ordinary to her - but she didn't get the chance to ask. "Yes, even yours. His hair is darker than the rest, but they all look sickly and in need of soap."

Arya didn't have time to argue with her. "I told you to find another way." If Lord Wylde was telling his king where he had first met Yuisaraq, their deception would be lost.

"We can't all climb walls and windows," she said while shaking her head. The thought of climbing walls made her think of her younger brother, and that made her feel worse. If they failed now...

"You Dornish?" Bronn asked as he entered the door and slowly strutted towards Yuisaraq. He sat on the bed with a light groan and picked up the metal chalice of wine with a hand of swollen knuckles.

Yuisaraq smiled and rose her brows in mystery. The King began unlacing his pants to push them down and access his breeches. Arya could wait no longer.

She grabbed her dagger from her belt and unsheathed it in one twist of her wrist, then dove towards Bronn. Her movements were clumsy as Cockshaw and she only served to knock him off balance rather than stab him. He leapt to his feet and swung the dagger back at her. Even with this slower impersonation, it was easy enough to block his arm with a hook of her elbow and a smash of her palm. He stumbled down to grab his discarded belt for his sword. Arya kicked it from him but the strands caught on her foot. Bronn tugged the leather ends and twisted them with a solid jerk, sending her crashing into the ground in the knight's heavy armour. He grabbed his sword as she pressed herself up, then swung with all his might.

For a man of his age, he fought with surprising speed. Still, he made the same mistakes as any Westerosi knight, swinging too heavily from the joints and making too broad a target. Arya avoided his next two swings and watched how he pivoted slightly to the side with each slash; on the third, she met his blade with Cockshaw's broadsword and used the power of Bronn's own thrust to knock him backwards. She kicked an armour-plated boot to his chest until he flailed back onto the bed, then disarmed him and kept pressing with her foot. It was almost done.

Just like with Walder Frey and Meryn Trant, she wanted him to know his killer's identity; she grabbed her dagger with her left hand and peeled back Cockshaw's face with her right. Bronn's face drained of any remaining colour.

"You tried to hurt my family, so now I hurt you." The word sounded jumbled as she spoke them, not nearly as clever as her line at the Twins -_ leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe._

Bronn looked at her with shock, then something resembling approval. "You're that Stark girl, the one Jaime Lannister said killed the Night King." Arya said nothing; she had never known that Bronn knew what had happened during the Battle for Winterfell. "Dorne says you and the Fuckless Lord got a little too close for House Dayne." The _Fuckless Lord_? The nickname was especially ironic given the way that lord had spent most of their journey to the Capital.

"Does his cock work?" She could feel her eyes narrowing with each word from his mouth. "I heard it does good when it needs to - Lady Lucynda enjoyed it well enough."

He was trying to get a rise out of her. She figured out that had Gendry laid with Lucynda Dayne the moment his hand twitched when Davos mentioned the betrothal - it was hardly news to her. Still, a strange jolt of jealousy twinged in her lower gut at the thought.

"A man who doesn't like whores can't know that much. Bet you could use lesson in what it should be like." _Disgusting_, Arya thought. Hot spit flooded her mouth and her stomach lurched - he had made her physically ill.

Before she could force her insides calm, a red knife flew from behind her into Bronn's throat. A moment later another hit his groin. "For good measure," Yuisaraq said in Baqabataral. Arya took deep breaths until her stomach settled, then grabbed the first knife and ripped it from the wound, twisting it to the side to slice and hurry the bleeding. The blood gurgled in his shallow throat as it poured out; he crumpled back onto the mattress with a light choke and breathed no more.

"He tried to kill my brother, this was my kill."

"You took too long." That was true. She smiled in victory and handed Arya the clothing she had carried for her in her satchel. Arya removed the stifling armour and donned her normal leathers. There was no sense in retaining her disguise - if anyone discovered what happened to Bronn they would be looking for Cockshaw.

"We should go." Bronn's death had been quick and quiet, but it would take only one mistake to alert those outside the door of their presence. Yuisaraq nodded and tore her knife from Bronn's crotch before wiping it on his oil-stained breeches and following Arya. "We need to get to another part of the castle - it's too easy to find us here." An east-facing window seemed to lead to a battlement or exposed walkway. Arya wedged it open and shoved herself to the sill. The jump was close, but the sun had set and it would be easy to leap too far. She took a breath and hopped off, landing on the structure with ease.

Yuisaraq looked more skeptical. Her mouth twisted to the right as she calculated the distance in her mind.

"Just jump," Arya urged, "Don't think about it." Yuisaraq nodded and closed her eyes. "Look where you're going!" She opened them slightly and jumped, landing on the edge too hard with a groan. Arya pulled her shoulder towards her and helped her hobble to the nearest entryway.

"When were you going to tell me?" Her friend asked as she pushed her hand against her ankle to stretch it. Arya had no idea what she was talking about. "You're pregnant."

She stopped moving and stared. There was no doubt in Yuisaraq's eyes. "I knew Niiotha couldn't keep her mouth shut. I'm not."

"She didn't tell me anything. And you are."

Arya sighed - this was not a conversation she wanted to have. "I think I would know." Yuisaraq looked at her with pity.

"I've never seen you wait to kill someone before. You're distracted." She grinned.

"I was just trying to figure out what he was talking about." That wasn't even a decent lie.

"You threw up on the ship. And in your home!"

"I drank enough to drown a horse that night, and Gendry was just as sick as I in Winterfell - when do you think he's due?"

Yuisaraq smirked. "He ate after three days, you couldn't keep anything down for ages." Niiotha had said the same, only she had the added insult of being an expert. "And your chest is as big as mine now." Arya couldn't explain that. She sighed and ran a hand over her loosening braid; the escaped ends were irritating her as they stuck to her neck.

"If you're going to accuse me, can you at least fix this?" Yuisaraq moved behind her and untied the strands, then plaited them tightly.

"How did it happen?" Arya turned to stare at her in disbelief - everyone knew how pregnancy happened. Yuisaraq yanked her head back to face forward so she could finish braiding. "I know how. I just thought Niiotha gave you her moon tea."

She sighed, "I left it in Storm's End." Now it was Yuisaraq's turn to stare. "I thought it was a nice gesture or something - I don't know."

"And you just let him -"

"No, I'm not an idiot. He's been… spilling outside." Yuisaraq raised a thin brow; Arya could hear her voice chiming _'Obviously not.'_ "There was one night… When we left King's Landing."

The other brow raised to match the first. "You were bleeding when we left."

She sighed again and stepped away once the braid had been closed off with a scrap of leather. "It was almost done, practically just water." Dark eyes met Arya's with a judgmental smirk. "I thought he _died_, Yuisaraq."

"Even Niiotha doesn't do that." Arya looked over to the entryway. No one seemed to be following them yet.

"Can you walk?" She twisted it in a circle and shrugged, so they started down the brightly lit hall.

Each empty hallway seemed to narrow a little more. Niiotha and Yuisaraq both were convinced that she really had some beginning of life inside of her.

It was true that she hadn't bled, but years of limited meals and strenuous activities meant her moonblood had never kept a normal schedule. There were infinite excuses for each of the signs Niiotha had pointed out to her angrily in the halls of Winterfell - her vomiting was from whatever illness she and Gendry had both picked up on the road, the blemishes on her normally clear skin were from the same, she couldn't sleep because Bran was in danger. But other things were harder to excuse. Her breasts hurt and seemed nearly twice the size they had been before; she could hardly get her jerkin to lace properly these days, even after she bound her chest tightly with linens. And her moods were ridiculous - she had always been quick to anger, but now she was just as fast to tear up or feel atop the world. And then there were the random, almost unbearable flashes of need. She had woken Gendry up most nights on the ship, partially out of restless boredom but mostly out of inordinate desire. They had lain together twice a day on the sail south, often thrice, and when he kissed her in the cabin after she finished putting away her freshly sharpened knives, it didn't even matter that she was mad and hurt, the yearning she experienced then was stronger than any she had felt before. Fuck. Arya wondered if the halls were closing in on Yuisaraq as they were for her.

"Is this why you're fighting? He doesn't seem the sort to not want a child." Arya shook her head. No, Gendry was certainly not that type of man.

"I haven't told him," she said so quietly she could hardly hear herself. A small hand wrapped around her right forearm in reassurance. "I really didn't think it was possible. They say you can't conceive on your moon."

"And yet here you are."

"Niiotha said she's seen it before."

Yuisaraq nodded and pulled out a throwing knife before turning the corner. Still clear. "I'm glad, you know. Now you can't run away." She turned to face Arya once they were both on the same side of the wall.

"I don't run away from anything." _Yes you do._ "And if I wanted to I still could."

Yuisaraq shook her head. "It's a powerful thing, you know. It'll go fast. Mine felt like it was over in a week." Arya was sure she had mistranslated. She swallowed hard and looked behind them before continuing, "Wait until it moves. Even you'll cry."

"You have a child?"

A heavy gaze met hers sadly. "Almost," she whispered. Arya went to speak, to say anything at all, but no words came out. How had she never known? "He would have been beautiful. He was so full of life… until he just wasn't. Qaobana's mother had already sewn him enough clothing for his first five years." It was the first time she had heard her mention her husband's name since his death in Greenstone. "He used to move so much I couldn't sleep, always flipping and kicking and punching. I half thought he'd sprint out of me. And then one day he simply stopped. There was no pain, no incident, nothing I ate, no hit or fall. He just… stopped." Her eyes were dry but cold as they stared at nothing in particular on the floor before her. "I still had to birth him, still had to push and scream and bleed just like I would have for a healthy babe. But he was stiff and had to be pulled from me - when he emerged he was like old winter berries, purple and wrinkled. He never took one breath.

"That was just a few moons before you came to Baqabatar. Qoabana and I thought maybe the East would be different, maybe we would have another." Arya felt her own tears come, though Yuisaraq's eyes did not well. She wondered if the fact this was the fist she heard of the child was because she had been selfish. Maybe Gendry was right. "It won't be like that for you." She smiled lightly at Arya and then started back down the hall. "I don't want one of my own anymore, but I hope you know I'm going to steal this one as much as I can."

On her home island, every woman interacting with a child called herself an _arifiruq_, a role that Arya never noticed them distinguish from blood relatives. She said it aloud and Yuisaraq grinned with a nod. "Let's get back so you can get over your fight and I can get my room to myself again," her friend said. Arya refused to admit that she wanted that just as much as Yuisaraq did - she certainly wasn't weak enough to think sleeping beside someone was somehow any better than sleeping alone.

A man in armour distinctive to the Reach stood guard by a heavy door. Yuisaraq tilted her head towards him and Arya moved her dagger to his throat in swift silence before he knew they were there. They were no more than ten minutes from the entryway where Palomai was supposed to wait.

The room he guarded was empty. _Strange._ Two tables sat littered with empty plates and tankards - maybe it was paranoia, but Arya felt something resembling dread creep up through her gut and into her lungs like a shallow fog. No, it wasn't unreasonable, a normal meal would have been cleared by serving staff before they exited the room. These people had left unexpectedly - someone had found Bronn.

Yuisaraq knew it too. They made eye contact slowly.

The room had two doors other than the one through which they had entered - the occupants had to have left through one of those. Arya had no idea where either door led nor how many people might be waiting for them if they knew the two women were there. There were seven plates on the table, and most had been scraped fully clean` of their meal. Not lords, she realized. The chairs were left scraped back as though someone had pushed them heavily. _Armour_ \- soldiers or guards, most likely.

Yuisaraq pushed air through her teeth by the window. "You think we can climb this?" Arya looked. There were a few exposed bricks that she could balance herself on, though she wasn't convinced that they both had the same level of climbing skill. A ledge was a short drop from the last brick - even if Yuisaraq fell, she could just push against it and slide down safely. She nodded.

Arya went first and was surprised to find her balance slightly off. She pushed the thought of a child affecting her weight distribution from her mind and jumped from the ledge to the fragrant sweetferns below.

Yuisaraq seemed to regret her decision immediately upon looking down at the drop. She turned unsurely to squat on the window ledge and slowly toed her way down brick by brick. They didn't have time for this. After what felt like a damn lifetime, she carefully jumped from the ledge and landed with a surprising softness.  
"Seas over heights," she muttered as Arya started forward again.

Fast, metal-clad feet were coming around the corner. Arya grabbed Yuisaraq and shoved her down back into the ferns. A column of soldiers, maybe ten, trotted West. Good. The wrong way. She waited until their feet faded like a departing storm's thunder, then peered out from the leaves. It was a small group to send when their usurper king had been found dead - could it be a distraction? She crawled out from under the flora to check the other side. No soldiers were in sight. Mayhap Bronn just had a poor military defense strategy. Or he was just cocky enough to think he didn't need much in the way of castle defense - that seemed more likely.

Yuisaraq rose slowly and wiped the dirt from her knees. Arya knew this part by heart - they'd just need to get around the northern corner, run no more than a minute, and go through a wide drainage ditch right of the third archway before they got to where Palomai was to wait for them. She nodded at her friend.

Each step felt loud on the rough cobblestones. Arya could feel where her saddle's stirrups had worn down her boots slightly from those weeks of riding north; it made her strangely sad. She had worn these boots in the West, and now - _for fuck's sake…_ was she really getting sentimental about leather? Yuisaraq and Niiotha might really have been right, no healthy, normal person would have any feelings about something so trivial.

Two men guarded the archway before the one they needed. Arya tapped Yuisaraq's shoulder to have her distract them yet again. She loosened her woven flax vest slightly and shoved her chest up with her hands to make cleavage visible just as she had for Bronn and his lords, then pinched her cheeks for colour. The guards were simple men, easily distracted by even a flash of ankle, never mind mostly-exposed breasts. Arya ran behind them as her friend produced an nauseating giggle. She found the ditch - really it was more of a tunnel through the dirt - and wriggled into it with baited breath. Yuisaraq was behind her soon after.

It was too confined for them to crawl on their knees, so they shoved themselves forward with their forearms, their stomachs and thighs dragging against the ground beneath them.

Palomai waited exactly where he was meant to be. He gripped his club tightly as they slithered out from the drainage shaft. "Is it done?" Arya nodded. There were no guards around them, but they sprinted anyways. The tunnels were closer than Arya realized; she saw Gendry and his stupid relieved countenance when they rounded the corner.

Yuisaraq's run was slow with her injured ankle, so Arya moved back to help her. She grabbed her by the waist and tugged her forward - they were just a few minutes from the ship. An odd expression washed over Gendry's face as he looked at her again. She ignored it.

Something heavy smacked against her shoulder and she and Yuisaraq tumbled down to the dirt. Arya's right hand slammed into the ground and a sharp pain shot through her wrist; her left hand instinctively protected her stomach as though it cared more for any potential babe than for itself. Someone shouted her name - probably Gendry, but she wasn't entirely sure.

A stream of arrows whizzed overhead and struck someone she hadn't heard behind her. She craned her neck and saw two men in Dornish armour collapsed on the ground, feathered fletching sticking from their necks.

Yuisaraq must have twisted something else in the fall; she laid heavily atop Arya and emitted a strange sob mingled with a moan as she twitched. Arya writhed out from underneath her friend, ignoring the pain from where her left shoulder had taken much of their combined impact, and went to help her stand.

She hadn't twisted something at all - she had been skewered by a spear. Yuisaraq laid face-down in a growing pool of blood. _No_. It was the only word she could conjure.

"Arya!" Gendry was by her side, turning her to face him as his hands felt her shoulder and back for any signs of damage. "You're alright?" If she could think clearly, she might have realized how terrifying their fall must have looked - a spear going towards two women falling in a heap together. But her brain could still only think that one word.

"Help her!" she barked. She didn't know how they could remove the spear to turn her over - why hadn't she let Niiotha come with them?

Gendry took her dagger from its useless scabbard on her hip and hacked at the back of the spear while her body refused to work. He broke it the rest of the way with his hands. Yuisaraq gave a feeble groan at the pain of the shifting weapon.

Palomai joined them and propped her shoulders on his knee to face the sky.

It was a brutal sight - the spear had passed fully through her gut and poked through her torso, blood pouring out from around it and a peek of some shiny soft innard cushioning the head of its blade.

Yuisaraq's eyes were already dimming. Arya had no words for her; she simply held her face in her hands and repeated "No" as though it were the only word she knew. She couldn't even think to translate it into the dying woman's native tongue. Her hands smeared crimson across perfectly symmetrical cheeks and a sharp jaw like bright blood splattered against snow on a winter hunt.

Finally Yuisaraq's voice stopped its rasping and her throat stilled; her dark eyes loosened their gaze and faded from bright onyx to dull coal. Arya pressed her forehead to Yuisaraq's and choked back a sob.

"More will come," Palomai uttered, his voice thickl. He poked his lips out at the stairwell where the Dornish soldiers' corpses laid.

"We can't leave her." Palomai nodded and Gendry looked full of pity. He helped as best he could, grabbing Yuisaraq's corpse in one scoop and tossing her over his shoulder before running to the tunnel. Palomai grabbed the splintered end of the spear from the ground and coated it in Yuisaraq's blood, then smeared some down his face, neck, and chest in one depressing swipe.

Tears blinded Arya as she ran, but the tunnels were a straight line to the sea. Gendry pushed her in front of him and kept his hand on her as they ran, sliding it from her back to her arm to her hand depending on how far in front of him she got. Finally Podrick Payne's distinctive red armour appeared above them. He extended a hand to help lift Palomai out, then did the same for Arya. A breath passed in silence when he saw what lay draped over Gendry's broad shoulders. There was no time for him to try to help once he realized what was going on; Gendry had already wedged his foot into the wall and gotten himself out.

The oars rowed smoothly, barely making a sound as they cut through small waves and got them out to the Evenstar. The occupants were just as silent.

Palomai bolted up the rope ladder to the ship first, followed by Arya. Her face felt like stone as Davos looked to the man's blood-covered body and then to her. Gendry was behind her, as always, surprisingly fast for someone carrying a corpse; his palm pressed lightly into her mid-back as soon as he got over the taffrail.

"Why are you here?" Davos croaked out after his face fell at the sight of Yuisaraq's body."What?"

"The plan if something went wrong - Lord Wylmar has twelve thousand men ready not a league from the gates." He might as well have been speaking Ghiscari. Gendry said something back to Davos, but Arya's mind still couldn't process a word.

Mellyndon or Bryndemere or Davos or Palomai winched up the anchor as Podrick climbed aboard after securing the dinghy. They were sailing North, technically victorious, but all Arya could think was_ "No."_


	11. Chapter 11 - The Evenstar II

**Chapter XI - The Evenstar II**

_Gendry_

"I think we'll be alright going straight to White Harbor. Got enough food for two meals a day if it takes ten days, and I think saving the King and having the Princess in the North with us ought to keep the Manderlys' coin purse loose enough to stock up for our ride to Winterfell." Davos spoke without looking, his weary blue eyes focused on the sea.

The two Stormlanders stood by the stern; Davos' good hand steered the tiller and Gendry looked over his shoulder occasionally to be sure they were alone. He pursed his lips then nodded, though Davos couldn't see the gesture. Nearly a full day had passed since their escape from the Capital, and the sun was approaching the horizon. Palomai had told them all that they'd be burying Yuisaraq at sea at dusk - apparently her home island had strict funerial protocols that required the sun's light be visible without seeing the source itself, and intricate preparations that had kept Palomai and Arya in Yuisaraq's cabin all night and day. He wanted desperately to go check on her, or at least to bring her a bowl of soup or a chunk of bread, but he knew better.

"Let's just hope we get some real winds and keep away from any vengeful pursuers." Davos seemed to be speaking to occupy himself more than any actual need to communicate. Miraculously, no ships had followed them from Blackwater Bay, though Gendry and Mellyndon both stood watch for two shifts in a row while everyone else recovered from the shock of recent events. In truth, Gendry was just as shocked as most of them, but Arya seemed utterly devastated and _that_ made him feel a hell of a lot worse than anything else.

The waves crashed choppily against the hull, too quick or sporadic to form an actual rhythm in their collision. _Ten more days of this_, Gendry reminded himself. He wouldn't let himself wonder how long it would take if the winds didn't pick up. The weather was fair - warm enough to not even need his woolen cloak - but he supposed it was always possible a storm might decide to come in and drown them all on a whim.

Podrick emerged from the stairwell and approached them somberly.

"They need you below," he said while looking at Gendry. With a nod to Davos and Pod, he made his way down the stairs - had they always creaked and moaned so much with his weight?

Palomai opened the door the moment he knocked and gestured him in quietly. He had cut his hair short, as short as Gendry's had been when he ventured north with Jon and Davos to beyond the Wall.

Gendry's eyes found Arya almost instinctively; she looked at him for a moment, then held a long blink and looked to Yuisaraq. It was a rough sight - the corpse was stripped of its clothing and washed, though the spear wound still seemed gruesome even when not pouring fresh blood. Her skin had faded from its vibrant coppery brown to a dull, sickly colour resembling roasted and ground wheat. Someone had tried to put shiny white bones and shells and some intricate decorations of that red metal in her braids, and her face had been covered in stripes of purple, orange, and black. Gendry wondered what that was, and where they had gotten it from to have it ready on the ship. A pile of fabric, her sheets, judging by the bare mattress, lay folded neatly by her side.

"We've got to bring her up carefully," Palomai said. His voice was lower than usual, and more conversational than his standard quips.

"Shouldn't we clothe her or something?" It seemed wrong to display her nakedness in front of everyone.

"Baqabatarin leave the world as they're born into it," Arya responded quietly. That made sense, in a way.

Yuisaraq's cold skin was softer than he expected as he lifted her by the upper arms and let Palomai lead them up the stairs, her calves in his hands. Arya hurried before them and spread the sheet out where they should lay her, then hurried back down to the cabin to fetch the others and grab a small engraved bag Gendry had never seen before; he presumed it had been Yuisaraq's. Davos and Bryndemere dropped the anchor and joined them. Every single person aboard the ship gathered around - every one of them had enjoyed Yuisaraq's presence and all knew this would have been important to her.

The moment the sun sank below the western horizon, Arya sprinkled some fiery-tinged ochre in a line that drew across Yuisaraq's entire body from toe to head. She did the same with a ground fragrant purple flower that Gendry couldn't remember the name for, and then with something he thought might be kohl. She said something in that same language the two women had spoken in his solar a few months earlier, then looked to Palomai as though she couldn't be sure of the next part. Palomai continued in a version of the tongue that sounded heavily accented even to Gendry.

He couldn't look at Yuisaraq anymore - he just kept imagining it was Arya, and that made him want to empty his stomach over the ship's rail. The spear had come so close, so fucking close. If it had been but half a hand's length to the left, if it had just twisted slightly in the air or if there had been a strong wind, it would be her they'd be burying instead. Only she wouldn't be naked and covered in some strange powder to be thrown into the sea, she'd be rotting away as he brought her north to bury her in the crypts of Winterfell next to the bones of her kin. Then he'd have to keep coming back and visiting her home to find excuses to venture into the cold, musty depths just to stare at a poor stone likeness of her perfect face. Arya had mentioned once that her father's statue looked nothing like him - if the carvers couldn't make a proper figure of the man who had been their lord for more than a decade, there was no way they would get her right. They'd make her look too much like Sansa or Bran or Jon, and Gendry would have to keep telling them to fix it, to make her face longer, her nose softer, her eyes sharper.

But Arya's life hadn't been cut short by that spear, she stood before him now with her face scrunched up on itself to keep from crying. Palomai was less intent on appearing stoic, and seemed unbothered by the fact that everyone could see streams of tears cascading down his face like the rapids of the Trident. Gendry wondered if men were not considered womanly for crying in the West - surely any Westerosi warrior who fought as fiercely as he did would have forced his eyes dry. The sobbing man placed the spear pieces that had killed Yuisaraq upon her corpse and he and Arya wrapped the body in the sheet, then sprinkled it once more with the powders. Both of them smeared some on the foreheads and palms of those observing; frustratingly, it was Palomai who did it for him and not Arya. They were instructed to each grab the body and lower her head-first into the cobalt waters.

"That's it," Palomai said with a shaky voice. Podrick, Mellyndon, and Bryndemere went below deck, presumably to drink. Davos waited for Gendry but he did not move; Arya was standing perfectly still, staring into the water like she thought Yuisaraq might swim right back up and explain she had just been a little tired but was ready for the sail north now. He had left her alone long enough - he'd wait with her until she was ready. What else were you supposed to do when the person you loved most was like this?

Gendry stood behind her in silence for a moment, long enough that he hardly noticed when Palomai left to join the others. Finally he took a step forward and extended his hand to rest it on her back.

"Lad, I could use your help with the anchor." Davos either had come back or hadn't left and spoke before Gendry finished his reach. He looked to him, then back to Arya before following. "Let her have some time."

He pulled the slime-covered chain from the depths; a particularly sharp barnacle sliced his left palm as he tugged it onto the deck. "Should'a told you to use gloves," Davos realized aloud. Gendry shrugged and coiled the anchor's chain before rinsing the wound with sea water and wrapping it in a clean strip of fabric. He'd had far worse.

The next few hours passed unbearably slowly. Every time he thought he might have a chance to go check on Arya someone pulled him aside for a new task - help chop the onions and carrots for the stew, hack the thick beef bones for broth, winch a windlass to hoist a new sail. The moon was full and reflected back onto the calm seas, casting a peaceful blue light on all in its domain by the time Davos agreed to let Bryndemere take over their navigation.

Gendry stretched his arms behind his back and felt the bones of his spine and shoulders pop and crack their stiffness away. He hadn't slept since the night before King's Landing, and even that had been restless and occupied with angry grey eyes. Aya remained where he had left her, her arms holding her weight as she leaned against the rail. He still needed to apologize, but it seemed wrong when they had just buried her friend.

She stiffened as he approached, raising her head and fixing her posture as though either of them cared about that in the slightest. Gendry walked to stand beside her, not quite touching, but not awkwardly far, either. Seawater thumped against the wood beneath them as the _Evenstar_ slowly sailed forward. A quick glance revealed that Arya had been crying. She had clearly managed to wipe the tears away before he looked, but the glow of the moon highlighted the trails etched onto her face. He moved his left hand and arm to touch hers and she turned to look at him. Gendry had no idea what to expect - did she want to be left alone? Was she angry? Did she realize that, even if her friend was dead, she was still perfect and whole and alive to see another day? Her face crumpled with a hard swallow as she met his eye, and new tears began to stream their way down the paths left by their predecessors. It took only a gentle tug of her arm to turn her towards him and pull her close.

It didn't take a particularly close bond to know Arya was blaming herself for Yuisaraq's death. That wasn't logical, but it wasn't surprising, either. Gendry could think of no other explanation for why she seemed so utterly broken. If it were Niiotha, he might have imagined a reaction like this, but he hadn't ever seen that the quiet woman was close to Arya. He supposed they must have been for her to cross the sea, but he hadn't seen an especially strong connection between them. He had seen her cry before - a few times when she thought he was sleeping on the kingsroad as children, once after some terrifying dream in King's Landing before her sail west, and a few times when her eyes brimmed on their way north a few months earlier - but this was different. Then again, Arya's recent method of dealing with being sad was to use his cock to forget her troubles; he figured this was the better approach in the long term.

Gendry's cheeks became surprisingly wet as tears of his own began to sting his eyes. He just kept thinking about that fucking spear, thrown by a Dayne bannerman at that, and the way both women had tumbled forward as one. And then Arya hadn't even realized what he thought had just happened - he hadn't been able to breathe, choking back the burning lump in his throat and feeling his stomach drop somewhere beneath his knees until he realized she hadn't been hit. He pressed her closer to him at the memory, that terror rising back up into his lungs.

Blood, possibly Yuisaraq's or just as likely that of someone she had killed in the Red Keep, was matted in her hair in dry smatterings. Gendry didn't care; she was alive. He pressed his face to her head and breathed her in, grateful to be able to smell her scent beyond the blood, dirt, and sea.

When his own tears stopped, he moved his hand from her shoulder to her face, slowly lifting it to look at him. For a moment he though he might kiss her, but her face was swollen from crying and her breath hitched to hold back another sob. Arya's cheek felt soft beneath his thumb as he wiped a rolling tear. He closed his eyes and pressed her face to his chest again, lightly kissing the top of her head before looking around the deck.

Palomai had one of the watches that night. His usual irritation with their physicality was gone - instead he simply nodded when Gendry saw him looking at them, then stared off towards the moonlit sea instead.

After a while Arya, began to still. Her hands moved from being propped between them to slide around his back and embrace him, and Gendry rubbed a large circular pattern against her back absentmindedly. "Let's try and get some sleep," he said quietly against her hair. She nodded and they walked back to the cabin they hadn't shared since the day they arrived in Gulltown.

Twice again that night she broke into tears, though never again as fully as she had on the deck.

"Did she believe a funeral like that would mean she'd get a good afterlife?" He asked her the second time when he wasn't sure what to do but felt stroking her hair was probably not enough. She paused and moved away enough to look at him.

"It's... complicated." Her eyes veered off to think about the best explanation. "Baqabatar is divided by families, like we are with houses. Hers was important to the northwest side of the island. Most families have a specific god they focus on, but the whole island has dozens, maybe even a hundred. Theirs was a goddess of the seas, Qartyeb, others pray to her for strong winds and good fish harvests, but her family is supposed to pray to her for almost everything. We tried to use her colours for the funeral." So that was the purpose of the powders. "Baqabatarin believe you prove yourself for one life after death, then you get reborn. So she thought she'd be assigned to watch over the next child born to her family. The funeral is supposed to help her leave her body and be with Qartyeb until then."

It sounded complicated, but Gendry had been raised to believe in a god that was somehow seven in one and had seen his blood effectively kill three would-be kings - this was no more absurd. He nodded and held her shoulder as she wiped tears from her eyes again.

They managed to sleep a little, though Arya seemed to be intentionally staying too far for him to pull her close. She didn't even roll towards him in the night like she had at that inn north of Palisade Village, and her hands stayed to herself rather than within his - she was still angry with him.

When they awoke, Gendry tried to kiss her but she turned her head at the last moment so his lips met only her cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment in frustration and sat up in the bed to open the window.

"Arya," he started. He had to apologize finally. There was still some residual anger that she hadn't told him she'd go West, but he was angrier with himself than with her, and only one of them merited an actual apology. She turned away from him and walked over to the far wall to dress in her blood-covered leathers again. "In Gullstown…" Apologies were harder than he realized. He tried again, "I shouldn't have said that. I know it isn't true and it was…" It was a lot of things - harsh, unnecessary, selfish. He wasn't sure how to continue.

"I do love you, you know." Gendry's heart raced as her words pulled him from his butchered apology. He knew she felt something, and he had hoped it might be something like love, but he never thought he'd get her to actually say it. All he could think of now was getting up from the bed and kissing her until she forgot her own house words.

"But," she turned to him and met him with determined, sad eyes the colour of a harsh thundercloud. "If you ever again put your feelings before mine or try to hurt me to make things easier for yourself or to even the stances, I will sail West or ride north of the Wall or go wherever it is that I know you can't find me... and I will never come back." His throat caught. Was that a threat? Arya seemed painfully serious, like just saying the words clawed at her own heart. She touched a spot of Yuisaraq's blood that had dried on her lower stomach and swallowed hard before nodding and looking at him. "And this is the only warning I'll ever give. I'm telling you now so that if you wake to an empty bed, you'll know why… And you'll know not to bother looking for me." Her eyes were full again, but she blinked until they were just shiny, like a thin layer of ice upon stone.

"That's…" _The worst thing I can imagine? More than I deserve? Going to drive me fucking mad?_ "Fair… But I won't, not ever again. I don't know what came over me, I'll never -"

Arya sat down on the firm, straw-stuffed mattress beside him and put her hand on his. "I know."

They sat there for some time in heavy silence, neither sure of how to proceed. Davos knocked on the door gently to update that he had prepared a light meal to break their fast after the chaos of the day before.

Gendry knew Arya had no appetite, but his own stomach was roaring so loudly she could probably hear it from where she sat by his side.

"I'm fine. Go eat." She certainly wasn't fine, but smothering her wouldn't help. He twisted his hand to caress her palm and pressed her inner wrist to his lips before heading to the galley to take up Davos' offer.

.

Arya's words ran through his mind all day. She was shit at processing her own feelings, but her analysis of him was terrifyingly accurate. _'If you ever hurt me to make things easier for yourself…'_ that was it, that was exactly what had happened. The thought that he hurt her at all was difficult to swallow, but the idea that he knew when he did it... whoever that person was, it wasn't him. It wasn't the drink, it wasn't the pressures of being a lord, it was some shallow, concentrated mixture of every insecurity he had ever felt with her. He never wanted to be that person again. Gendry could be better for Arya - hells, he was already better than that as it was. If he had to bite his tongue to keep back his temper, he would.

There was something else she had said that struck him, too. _'If you wake to an empty bed, you'll know why.'_

Gendry couldn't help but feel some foolish implication that, so long as he didn't fuck up again, she would be there. Was it possible he might wake beside her each morning and fall asleep with her in his arms for the rest of his days? Getting his hopes up was dangerous, he knew, so he certainly wasn't about to propose again or even ask if she would in Westeros, but something about the way she phrased it suggested permanence. The idea alone brought a foolish smile to his face for the rest of the day.

.

.

.

_Arya_

The journey south from White Harbor to King's Landing had seemed blessed by the old gods of the North, strong winds pushing them far faster than they planned. Now it was as if those same gods wanted them to stay put - the sails hadn't fully expanded with decent wind since their initial sail from Blackwater Bay, and they dragged through barely one hundred nautical miles a day.

Arya was simultaneously grateful for the delay and desperate to get back to Winterfell. Each day seemed to confirm her pregnancy a little more - twice she had vomited for no reason. She claimed it was sea sickness, but there were hardly any waves to blame. Arya no longer tried to deny it, though she certainly wasn't about to tell anyone. Gendry had been concerned and Davos had looked at her a little oddly once, but she had been such a mess from Yuisaraq's funeral that there was probably nothing she could do that wouldn't result in those things anyway.

Her friend, a precious, kind, wonderful woman who was too pure to ever have belonged in Arya's life, had died because of her. And before she passed she had made her feel something resembling acceptance for the fact that she was almost certainly with child before. When she foolishly wept on the deck with Gendry she hadn't just been mourning her beloved friend or her own idiotic decision to involve her in the plan, but also the future that was now lost. A future of a child raised to know a patient _arifiruq_ who could teach them to sail or strategize or what plants would make their skin bright and clear. How was she supposed to act as though nothing had changed?

As raw as she felt at first, it ultimately took just three days for the colours of the world to slowly begin to bleed back into place. The stews they ate no longer disgusted her, and she was able to sleep without dreaming of Baqabatar or seeing Yuisaraq staring down at the spear protruding from her stomach. Gendry seemed to notice, and left her alone without finding transparent reasons to check on her.

On the fourth day, she sparred with Palomai on the deck again and even allowed him to take her watch that night. "You ought to bathe," he said with a judgmental glance at her hair after he suggested it. Arya knew it was greasy and likely still caked with blood; Yuisaraq would have wrinkled her nose in disapproval and made some comment about "Easterners."

She did as he recommended, pulling up two buckets of sea water and soaking some leaves of winterbloom, dried mint, and pine needles from the small bag Niiotha had given her. She took the bucket into Yuisaraq's room once it had steeped and wet a cloth in the infusion before slowly scrubbing every part of her body. Arya sobbed as she washed, grateful to finally be fully alone but also desperately hollow and lonesome in her friend's absence. Like everyone in the West, Yuisaraq had always made sure she was clean and sweet-smelling. She took especially good care of her hair, washing and coating it in scented oils made from the seeds and flowers of her homeland before tightly plaiting it back. Arya's own hair was too thin for that, but she washed it thoroughly with harsh pressure on her scalp and ran a palmful of the oil from the dead woman's bag through her wet ends nonetheless. She braided it as best she could - never as well as Yuisaraq, Niiotha, or even Sansa might have, but still better than a bun or the half-tied style her father used to wear - and sat there on the empty bed until the cabin air had dried her and the emptiness in her gut dissipated again. Her nightclothes were airy and cool, made for a room warmed by summer heat or a roaring fire and piles of furs, not the Winter air of a ship passing through the Bay of Crabs, but her other clothing was stifling and bloody, so she wore the thin material instead.

Arya rinsed the blood from her leathers with the remaining water, then dumped the buckets' filthy contents back into the sea and went to her room; her eyes no longer stuck to the door beside her own.  
Gendry was writing a scroll, likely to the Stormlands, when she entered. He gave her a small smile, and she thought she felt her heart beat again for the first time since King's Landing. Arya removed her boots and hung the wet clothing over a chair next to where his outer leathers lay folded on the floor, then sat down on their bed, back propped against the wall.

She thought of anything but Yuisaraq while he wrote; Niiotha causing trouble in Winterfell - _without a doubt_ \- , whether Bran had come out of his bizarre vision state now that Bronn was dead - no idea -, how far south Nymeria had traveled - l_ikely back to where she found us in the Riverlands_ -, the undeniable fact that she was almost certainly carrying the child of the man writing at the desk in front of her - _… -_ , whether Jon would bring his son down with him by the time she returned to the North - _he'd best_ -, what the last book she had read was - _a terribly boring piece on translation strategies she read for the languages of the West._

Thoughts occupied her mind so fully that she hadn't noticed Gendry rolling up his scroll or putting away the quill and inkpot until he sat down beside her and rested his hand on her thigh.

"You smell nice," he observed. This was the most whole she had felt in ages, at least since her talk with Yuisaraq about her own ill-fated babe and the new one taken root in Arya's womb. _'I'm glad, you know,'_ she had said to her with that kind smile.

Gendry ran a hand across her messy braid and gave her that same soft smile he had when she entered the room. She caught his hand in hers as he lowered it, then leaned towards him to meet his lips with a slow, tender kiss. After a few seconds, he leaned back to look at her. They hadn't kissed since that tunnel, and she wasn't even sure that counted. It was obvious that he still felt remorseful for his words before, but she was sure he was more worried about her bouts of crying all week than that; he likely wasn't sure that they should be doing anything at all. Kissing felt infinitely better than crying, so she brought her hand to his cheek and urged his face to stay on hers. Their lips moved slowly, eventually joining warm, light strokes of tongue as pleasant as hot mulled wine on a cold winter day.

Arya felt none of the rush that usually took over her when they did this - they would get to the rest whenever they did. Gendry's hands slowly slid from her face and hair to her waist, then down to the hem of her nightshirt to hitch it past her hips and off her body. She twisted her easily and mirrored the smile he had given her earlier when she saw him looked at her as though he was waiting for Arya to change her mind. Her breasts were too tender for the pressure of his palm, another sure sign that the life Niiotha warned her about was real.

She removed his linen shirt and let her hands run over the broad musculature - that strong chest she had first noticed in Harrenhal, abdominal muscles more defined than she saw on many warriors, a back broad and well-crafted by a lifetime of smithing. It was unfair, really, that the scruffy bastard she had befriended on the kingsroad would grow into such a fine looking man. Then again, he was _her_ fine looking man, so mayhap it was fair after all.

She kissed his neck at the same speed they had maintained earlier, then started to slide his breeches from his body. When her mouth began to travel lower, he gently pulled her up and shook his head. _Disappointing_, Arya thought. She enjoyed taking him into her mouth and feeling like the most powerful and most skilled woman in the world at once. There was no time to think of how she wanted to taste him, he was already guiding her backwards and doing the same for her; his lips pressed soft and cold on her thighs before finally reaching the perfect place he knew so well. Soft moans and delicious waves of pleasure were all she noticed, her hands clutching at his shoulders and neck until she wasn't sure how he could possibly breathe. She did her best not to suffocate him with her legs as her body acted on its own with her release, then pulled him up to her to feel him as she needed.

She could just barely taste herself on his lips, noticing more the herbs she had washed with than the flavor that usually carried from his tongue. He stared at her and she had to use her own hands to guide him to her entrance when he seemed lost for a moment.

Just as with their kissing and the movements of his tongue, he pushed into her slowly, grinding his full length into her before pausing for a second. It was the most amazing feeling in the world, at least for that moment. Her voice sounded foreign as she moaned against his lips. He withdrew just as slowly, and she angled her hips to go even further.

Arya had always thought she preferred rough, fast strokes. Now she wondered if she was wrong.

He was staring at her again as he moved within her, kisses that seemed to say a million things in each press of the lips and caress of the tongue. Blue eyes bore into her own, and she felt strangely intimidated - it was not a familiar sensation. Arya closed her eyes to focus on the breathtaking movement inside of her, instead.

In a terrible shock, he removed himself. She opened her mouth to protest, but he silenced her with a quick kiss before moving his face to where he had occupied her before. His fingers moved with his tongue now, and any hesitation she thought she felt with his stare was gone again. She was close - _so close_ \- when he pulled away and stepped from the bed. Arya followed his lead and swung forward to wrap her legs around his waist and set the speed herself. Oddly, she found her body going at the exact same slow rate he had set for them earlier. The angle let him hit new depths and his gaze no longer stirred anything questionable in her gut, just lust and deep-seeded love that she might have ignored had she not admitted its existence to him just days before. She stared back, occasionally breaking the view to kiss him and savor the feeling. He pushed back against her movement, somehow burying himself deeper still, and whispered something against her neck - some profession of love that she might have kissed him for it if she weren't entirely occupied with the way a molten euphoria was washing over her, starting from where she felt herself tighten around him and spreading its way up and across her entire body. She couldn't quiet herself as it happened. Her mouth bit down on his shoulder in a failed attempt, but her throat had already formed the noises. He was no better as he grunted out a sound - Her name? A curse? Perhaps some combination? - against the side of her neck. When he stilled, she did too, both of them finished at once.

He leaned forward and wrapped an arm against her as he recovered. Arya kissed his brow lightly while they caught their breath. This was the first time he had spilled inside her since they began their journey on the kingsroad, but she said nothing. It was pointless now - it wasn't as though she could become _more_ pregnant. Her stomach was still flat, really no more extended than it might be after eating a decent meal, though in her view it seemed larger than a melon whenever she looked down.

She finally unwrapped her legs and peeled herself from him, falling back onto her elbows and twisting her body to lie back on the bed. Eventually Gendry joined her there, though he seemed not to have the energy to move fully to where she was. Instead, he laid where he had leaned before, his legs half off the bed and his face brushing her torso.

This was almost how it had been before, both of them naked and coated in a sticky layer of sweat and lust. Gendry traced the scars she had acquired in Braavos, scars she never realized sat over her womb until it housed life of its own. He had touched them before, though not as often as he traced the tattoo on her arm or the darker scars on her side and thighs.

Suddenly the action felt suspicious. He was focusing on her stomach, he had been so strangely emotional with that eye contact, and he hadn't removed himself for his finish… A wave of betrayal dissolved the pleasurable haze from her mind.

"Did you know?"

"Hm?" He raised his head lazily, black har falling in font of his eyes with the motion.

"When you said what you did, did you know?" He looked unsure of what she was referencing. "About how I didn't care for anyone but myself…"

She looked at his hand again. It rested on the worst of them, the place where the knife had been brutally twisted after it went in, just to the right of the slight swell of her stomach that she was only beginning to detect.

"Arya," he breathed her name with a regret that matched the twinge in his eyes. "I shouldn't have said it. I know you care, and for plenty of people." He looked away and ducked his head to lightly kiss the nearest part of her he could find - in this case the crook of her right elbow.

"But did you know _then_? Is that why you said it?"

"Know what?" There was no lie anywhere on his countenance - not in the way his perfect blue eyes narrowed with confusion, not in a twitch of his thin but soft lips, not in how his throat held back a swallow. He had no idea… and now she had put herself in a position in which she needed to tell him.

She inhaled deeply, filling her lungs as far as they could go and holding it for a second before looking to him again. Couldn't she just keep this to herself until the child came? Maybe she could wear massive cloaks and loose clothing until everyone thought she had just gotten fat.

_'Now you can't run away,'_ Yuisaraq's memory repeated through her mind again.

"I haven't bleed since we left King's Landing." The confusion didn't leave his face.

"Five days ago?" She shook her head and studied the darker grains of wood in the paneling of the windowsill.

Gendry's hand stayed perfectly still in its place over the mutilated skin.

"But we haven't… I always… That night at the inn?"

Arya sighed through her nose. "I didn't think it was possible, but Niiotha's seen it before."

"That was almost three moons ago." She nodded, eyes still focused on the sill. Gendry pressed his calloused hand flat, past the scar and onto the flesh below.

"I- I didn't know. I shouldn't have said it at all, but you have to know I had no idea. I never would have said that if I knew." She looked back to him - he wasn't lying. She could see a glint of excitement under his eyes at the news, but he hesitated with some sort of trepidation as he looked at her cautiously. "Are you alright with this?" He was waiting to know if she was okay with things before he reacted - Arya wasn't sure she had ever loved him more.

"It isn't how I would have chosen it to happen, but I'm not… distressed by it or anything."

"Arya," he started as he sat up quite suddenly and faced her. "I know I don't have the best record with this, but nothing has changed since that night after the feast in Winterfell. I mean… everything has changed, but not what counts." He was babbling nervously. "I love you so much. More than anything or anyone or any place. And I don't know how, but I think I already love this too," his hands were large enough to almost cover her stomach from hip to hip as he gently placed them over her. She ignored the fact that his touch was actually higher than any babe would be. "Nothing matters if you're not with me. I'll go West with you - I'll give Storm's End to Davos or Pylon or whoever wants it and I'll go." Her throat began to burn again and she hated herself a little for crying - this child was making her weak. He was just so... so selfless and pure and loving. And he was enough of an idiot to still think she was leaving. "Everywhere can use a smith. I don't know the languages yet, but you can teach me on the way, and -"

"I'm not sailing west."

"You're not?" His other hand began to trace the scar on her right thigh.

"No, not yet. Maybe in a few years to bring Palomai back and give Yuisaraq's family her things, but even that would only be a year at most. If you had just asked me you'd know that."

He looked down in embarrassment before processing the meaning of her words.

"So you'll stay in Westeros," he said tentatively.

"I do have that sword waiting for me in Storm's End." She _really_ wanted that damn sword with its wolf pommel and hilt. He grinned and started to speak. "I still don't want to be married," she blurted. It would be cruel to let him think otherwise.

Gendry mulled the statement over and nodded; he didn't look particularly phased by that. "We can legitimize it once it's born."

"Actually… I think it has to be a Stark." Gendry's face fell for a second, and she almost wished things were different. "Sansa needs an heir, and any child that comes from me is her best hope." She didn't bother stating that she knew Gendry was in a similar position as the last Baratheon. "It will know Storm's End just as well as Winterfell," she reassured him. "I'll go back with you to recover the Stormlands after we're done in the North. And if anyone holds this against you I'll kill them myself."

Gendry chuckled and rose his brow quickly in jest. "Anything else?"

"One day I'd like it to see the West if it wants to. Especially if it's a girl." He nodded and laughed softly to himself.

"I knew you didn't get seasick," he said with fake disdain in reference to her earlier lie.

"That was unrelated."

Gendry moved further up in the bed to be near her face. "Millions of women in this world and the gods make me love the only one as stubborn as I am," he said with a smirk before kissing her. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

His kisses had started ludic but soon became lustful. Today had been the first time they laid together in over a week, and both had gotten useful to their daily trysts before that.

Gendry paused and removed his mouth from her neck to look at her. "Will we…. hurt it?" He asked while measuring the point he would reach when within her by moving his hand over her stomach. Arya burst into a laugh that was half scoff and half genuine amusement. It was a sweet concern. "No more than the other hundred times." She exaggerated, but it might not be that far off. They had been doing this two or three times a day in Winterfell, and she had woken him in the night almost daily on the boat, not counting the mornings and afternoons when they were sick of looking at maps or chatting with the others. Gendry didn't seem to gather that she was joking and furrowed his brow with concern. "Let's hope it gets my brain and not yours."

"It can get all of you and never have any issues as long as it doesn't get your height." She scowled - it wasn't her fault she was short. He smoothed her face with a kiss heavy with tongue and seemed convinced enough.

.

The remainder of the journey went quickly despite the rationed meals and weak winds.

Arya swore Gendry to secrecy, though he was an overly-excited idiot and kept absentmindedly trying to touch her stomach even as they all met to discuss the plan for the ride to Winterfell. Arya swatted his hand away and sat next to Palomai instead.

The sail took two weeks in total, eight more days after she felt she had gotten past the worst of the sadness around Yuisaraq's death. Gendry's adoration made it easier. He looked at her with such unwavering love that she often felt guilty just lying there as he stared, as though she ought to at least do something worthy of his attention. But then there were times, just a few, when she thought she felt herself looking at him in just the same way.

She hadn't wanted a child or to decide to spend most of her days in the Stormlands, but somehow it all made her as happy as if she had planned for it. All she needed now was to get Bran back on his throne and she would truly be able to relish the feeling.


	12. Chapter 12 - Winterfell III

_Winterfell III_

**Arya **

The North was precisely as it was meant to be in Winter, filled with dangerous cold, whipping winds, and glaring snow. Arya took a deep breath and grounded herself in the feeling of her childhood home. This was where she was meant to be, the lands of her father and his father before him; now some part of those men lived on through the tiny, unborn thing beginning to grow within her. It was a strange thought, not something she had ever truly expected. She had been so careful to drink moon tea and to make Gendry spill outside of her. Or at least she usually was. Who would have known that one night of recklessness - somewhat cautious recklessness, at that - could have resulted in… this?

Another snowy gust cleared her mind of the colliding feelings that threatened to overwhelm her. She stood atop a battlement between the armory and the North Gate just before sunset. To her left, the godswood stood dark and proud; to her right, the crypts lay beckoning. Bran would be in the godswood, she had no doubt. Arya wasn't ready to speak to her brother yet, not when he knew everything that had, might, and would take place. She loved him and she would do anything to keep him safe, but she couldn't actually see him yet.

There was only one sibling Arya did want to speak to, and he was over three hundred leagues to the north. She still couldn't bring herself to tell Sansa what was happening inside of her, much to Gendry's dismay. ('What do you want to happen? To hide the heir to the North in Storm's End and let them wander over in twenty years to claim the throne?' He had asked her in disbelief when she admitted that she still hadn't told her sister despite their having been in Winterfell for nearly a week. She had agreed to his insistence that he inform Davos, but still personally refused to speak of it to anyone but Gendry and Niiotha.) Jon would have understood, he would have ruffled her hair and told her all about the birth of his son or where he was the day she was born. She knew the story already, at least her mother's perspective of it, but Jon would have told it in a way that made her feel calm and capable. Her favorite brother was not in Winterfell, though, he was with his own family north of the Wall.

She made her way to the crypts, feeling strangely nostalgic as the musty air filled her nostrils, bringing with it memories both joyous and painful. The crypts had been rebuilt after the disaster of the battle against the dead, when ancient corpses had clawed their way through their resting places and attacked Winterfell's most vulnerable. How none of them had foreseen that, Arya would never know.

Her father's statue was her first stop, a towering thing that captured nothing of his essence. The face was too long and the nose too big, like someone had described him to a stonemason who had never actually met him. Little Rickon was carved there as well, though when he was killed he was no longer as little as she remembered him. Her heart ached at the sight of it - a boy closer to manhood than infancy. Had he really been so tall, or did the sculptor make that up, too? Sansa had commissioned a statue of their mother and Robb as one of her first acts as Queen, but they weren't built into the walls the way the other figures were. They stood wedged awkwardly between Ned and Rickon instead. Stone direwolves lay on her brothers' immobile feet; _Grey Wind and Shaggydog_, Arya remembered. Her gloved fingertips grazed the stone hands and paws as she paused for a moment to even her breath.

The other statues were much older, but Arya realized she wasn't sure if they actually bore any resemblance to their intended Starks any more than the disappointingly inaccurate faces of her own family. _Those ones are family, too,_ she reminded herself.

There was her aunt Lyanna - Jon's mother, her father's beloved sister, the one she was said to look and even act a bit like. She had died in childbirth, Arya recalled suddenly, _torn apart as Jon entered the world…_ a depressingly meager death for a Stark.

Her father had once told her Lyanna would have wielded a sword had their father allowed it; Arya had heard whispers of a mysterious Knight of the Laughing Tree at the the tourney at Harrenhal who only appeared on the same day that the Stark girl had fallen ill and avenged a dishonored crannogman. If it was true, that meant Lyanna had been an adequate fighter, and she had still died bringing her child into the world.

The statue did bear some resemblance to Arya in her height and face shape - it didn't take much imagination to see how similar brown hair and grey eyes may have intensified their similarities.

Soft, proud footsteps echoed down the stairs and through the damp crypts. "I knew you'd be here," Sansa's voice rang out from behind her. "You're avoiding me."

"If I were avoiding you you wouldn't be able to find me at all." She kept her eyes on the statue's cold stone visage.

"I thought you might be at the meeting yesterday." Arya _had_ wanted to go, but she took one look at herself in her jerkin and knew her appearance would shout her pregnancy to her sister. It was getting hard to hide without a layer of furs, and her cloak opened to the front. If only she cared for the styles that draped loosely or hid under pelts the way Jon's and her father's used to. Instead she had water danced by herself in her chambers for the entirety of the meeting, then went and practiced her archery for an hour or two until she was sure the halls would be empty again.

"I'll be at the next one," she muttered to the air.

"You didn't break your fast with me today, either." Arya sighed at her sister's persistence.

"Wanted to sleep." She turned to face the Queen in the North and tugged the side of her cloak over her torso.

Sansa looked at her with worry.

"I know you were close to her." Arya could only presume she meant Yuisaraq. "I'm sorry she died, especially like that. Ser Davos said you had a nice ceremony for her on the sail North." She did not respond. "You can't let that keep you from seeing your family, Arya."

Grey eyes took shelter under comforting lids. Telling Sansa would be like ripping a blade from a mild puncture wound - it was best to get both over with in one sharp pull.

"That's not it," she said. Her sister waited for Arya to continue, her perfectly thin and arched right brow slightly raised. "What I'm about to tell you… you can't react. You can't be mad or happy or disappointed."

"You know I'm not promising that without knowing what you're talking about." Arya felt her teeth break skin as they chewed her bottom lip anxiously. She just had to do it.

"I'm…" a dry, scraping swallow gave her time to think. How did one tell their perfect sister that they were expecting a child, that they still wouldn't marry, or that they wanted their bastard to inherit her kingdom? "I'm with child." She blurted out quickly. That was a stupid way to say it - it was how her mother would have phrased such things, a nice way of expressing the little thing quickly growing mysteriously within her and twisting her moods from livid to frightened to lustful in mere minutes.

Sansa said nothing at first, just raised both auburn brows until her forehead creased and her blue eyes became as round as moons.

"Arya…" She didn't answer but went back to looking at the bust of Lyanna Stark. "You'll be the lady of Storm's End!"

"I won't." That was non-negotiable. She wouldn't be reduced to some subservient lady just because she was harboring life.

Sansa let out a deep sigh and looked to the entryway. "I found you to make sure you'd sup with us tonight. We will discuss this more later."

Arya shrugged. "If we must."

"I assume he knows?" She shot the Queen in the North an unkind glare, as though she hadn't waited weeks to be sure before telling Gendry that he would likely be a father.

They exited the crypts together and made their way to the Great Hall for a simple meal of salted pork, steamed cabbage, sharp cheese, and some sort of dark bread that went especially well with their heavily salted butter.

Gendry did not join them. Arya presumed he was off somewhere with Davos and Podrick, since both men were also conspicuously absent. For a moment, she thought about bringing a platter of food to their chambers. The idea left her mind just as quickly when she remembered that she had brought bread and stew to the forge as a kind delivery of lunch the day before - if he was hungry he could remember to fetch his own damn food, it was not her role to keep him fed.

Niiotha sat to her left and Sansa to her right. The Queen in the North's eyes kept glancing at her sister, scanning her for more signs of pregnancy though she behaved the same as always. When Arya had finished eating, Niiotha gave her a disapproving look and heaped a second helping of cabbage onto her plate. She didn't eat it, much as she hated wasting food, because she wasn't a fucking child and she didn't need anyone to treat her as such.

Everyone was irritating and sleep seemed the best possible escape. Arya got up and began to head towards the doors when Niiotha's voice rang out behind her.

"You're coming to my chambers later, right?" She had followed her from the table. Arya shrugged. "You are. I need to talk to you and see what's happening." If she wasn't annoyed enough before, she was ready to strike her friend now. Niiotha had been both judgmental and obnoxious the moment she got Arya alone - she knew she was pregnant the second she had removed her cloak and refused to let her forget that she had diagnosed her before they had even left the North.

"I knew this would happen the minute you didn't have moon tea in his chambers," she had told her haughtily. That was hardly fair, that wasn't even when it had happened.

Since then, Niiotha had inspected her twice, once absurdly intrusively to check things Arya was certain she could determine without doing_ that_, and once to try to convince her to drink some special tea and stretch her hips in ridiculous poses. Between her healed hip break, her small size, and a supposedly narrow pelvis - something she was certain Gendry would disagree with - Niiotha was convinced the delivery would be difficult. Arya found the whole thing ridiculous and mildly offensive. If she could survive being stabbed in the gut, fighting the Others, and the first ever recorded successful journey west, she could bear a babe just fine.

Clearly her friend was less sure. She pushed her by the shoulder out of the hall to bring her to her room once it became apparent that she wouldn't stop by of her own accord. Arya rolled her shoulder forward to escape her grip. It was still mildly sore from her fall in King's Landing.

Niiotha's room was down in the guest quarters, two doors down from the main staircase or three from the stairwell nearest Arya's chambers. She closed and latched the door behind them and opened a small ash cabinet full of jars.

"The plants of the East aren't what I'd prefer but I brought a few things with us," the annoyingly insistent woman murmured as she sorted through the contents. "Drink this."

Arya didn't take it from her extended hand. The vile was clear glass and filled with some shimmering yellow liquid.

"What is it?"

"I don't know how you say it in the Common Tongue, or if you even have it here. Just drink it."

"What does it do?" Niiotha would never poison her, but Arya's training in Braavos had taught her better than to just accept whatever she was given.

Niiotha sighed and shot her an impatient stare. "Keep being difficult if you want, let your child be born in knots." Arya drank.

"When we were in the South, in the castle of your…" her dark eyes faltered as she thought of the right word. "When we were with the Stormlord -" Arya scoffed. "We ate stinging nettle - can you get more?" They had grown it in the glass gardens of Winterfell when she was a girl, there was no reason to think they wouldn't now. She nodded and Niiotha smiled. "Good. You'll need to have some everyday for your hip and for the…" Another word she didn't know in the Common Tongue, though Arya had no idea what she referred to. "Drinking it as tea is fine if you're sick of eating them."

"Can I go yet?"

"Calm yourself - it's hardly been one minute." She stood and wiped the dust from the front of her long, high-slit skirt. "Any pain?"

Arya considered it. "Sometimes there's some in my hips, quick bursts of it."

"Show me." She pointed to where the twinges happened most. "Oh. That's normal. The nettles will help."

"Nothing's wrong?" Niiotha sighed and explained that her body was going to randomly hurt as it prepared - these pains now would mean an easier time later, or so she claimed. "And my nose is never dry. I've had a headache in the front of my skull for days."

"Also normal," Niiotha said. "Come back tomorrow and practice those stretches with me. I'll make you an herbal steam for your headache. We have to start measuring you." Arya groaned - she didn't want to have to come down here unless it was just to relax with her friend, not to be poked and prodded and fussed over. Niiotha was an entirely different person when it came to medicine - she was preferable as her normal loud and aggressive self.

When she left, Davos and Podrick were returning to their respective chambers. Arya tried not to smile at the fact that meant her bed might already be warm when she made it back to her own room. She was exhausted and the idea of curling up in the furs beside a warm smith made her lids especially heavy.

That assumption had been right. Gendry was undressing when she entered. Arya did the same and crawled onto the wool-stuffed mattress and mass of furs to quickly fall deep asleep the moment he climbed in beside her.  
.

.

.

**Sansa**

Sansa never really knew how she was supposed to address her brother. As King of the Six Kingdoms, it made sense to call him _'Your Grace'_ or mayhap _'King Bran.'_ But she herself was a queen - did that change the protocol in someway? Likewise, did the fact that she had watched her mother swaddle and change him as an infant require some level of familiarity? Insecurity around titles and propriety was not typical of the Queen in the North - she didn't enjoy it now.

"Your Grace," she greeted him as she approached in the godswood. Formality seemed especially suitable now that he was to return to the Capital.

"Sister," he responded. Perhaps she should have gone for familiarity.

"Did Volayne not find you? I'll have Lord Rywell see to her - she was to bring you something to break your fast."

Bran stayed looking towards the blood red leaves that hung from the Weirwood's expansive white branches. "She did. I wasn't hungry."

Her lips felt cold and thin as she tightened them. It was too terrible to admit to herself, but some minuscule sliver deep within her occasionally wondered if he would have been better off never waking from his fall. This man before her was not her brother. He was cold, distant, and always seemed to be speaking with some wry hint of matters about which he knew much but would not speak.

"You need to eat."

"I will when it's necessary." Sansa was certain her mother would have broken had she heard him. Though Arya always thought her sister to be their lady mother's favorite, the assumption was wrong. She had taken the time to comb her eldest daughter's hair herself and praised her often and publicly, that was true, but Sansa knew it was Bran who had been Lady Stark's most beloved child. If she could see him now, even as King…

"It seems neither you nor our sister have wanted to attend our strategic meetings of late."

"I've never wanted to attend them." The hot springs kept the heart tree free of snow, but her feet felt restless despite the warmth. They stepped slightly to the left, closer to her brother in his chair. That was true, he hadn't gone to the strategy meetings regarding the reclamation of the Capital, but he had remained in his strange trance then. Sansa assumed he would be in attendance once he awoke. Apparently that was not the case.

"I suppose you don't need to be there to know what we've decided." His thin lips curled up into a soft smile.

"Some still decided to speak with me, despite that." Sansa wasn't sure what that meant. "Lord Baratheon has suggested I wait in the Stormlands for the Capital to be secured." The thought of Lord Gendry awkwardly suggesting things Bran already knew was almost enough to make her smirk, but the obvious fact that he was doing that for Arya pushed her mouth into a complete smile.

That plan was not a poor one - the Stormlands were just a week's ride from the Capital, likely closer to two with Bran's dependence on a carriage. Still, even two weeks were much shorter than the two months it would take him to get from her home to his in mid-Winter.

"Would you like that?"

"I don't _like_ anything. The plan is sensible." Sansa nodded and looked at him again. His hair had grown longer in the time since Bronn's initial attack, hanging down to scrape along his ear lobes now. She'd have to suggest a servant cut it before they leave.

"Does Arya know?"

"Who do you think suggested it first?" _Of course._

"We ought to bring some Weirwood saplings on the journey. They'll need them in Storm's End." That made less sense than anything else he had said, but she did not argue. Weirwood saplings were plentiful north of the Wall. It would be no difficult task to send a few men to harvest a few and bring them back, roots wrapped and intact before her siblings began their journey south.

Sansa stood there in the clearing with her brother in silence until he announced he would allow her guards to push him inside for a bath and, unnervingly, a haircut.

The day passed quickly with tariffs to adjust, grain stores to review, and a steward to meet with before she recalled she had essentially ordered Arya to eat with her in her solar that afternoon. She called two servants, one to fetch her sister and one to acquire a tray with a suitable meal and some diluted wine. She wasn't pleased with her sister's latest bullheadedness and was determined to end their conversation with at least one of them understanding the other.

Arya arrived before the food, likely only because the serving girl had to bring her herself.

"Your Grace," she said sarcastically as she entered. Sansa wondered if the title had sounded so disrespectful when she used it with Bran earlier that day.

"Bringer of the Dawn," she retorted. Arya scowled and entered the room, thanking Noryne before taking a seat.

The food arrived shortly after - some cold chicken, roasted fingerling potatoes and carrots, and a bowl of freshly baked and heartily sliced bread. Arya looked it over and filled her plate.

"You know why we need to speak."

"For the joy of my company, of course." Why was she always like this?

"Arya, be serious." She looked at her and Sansa thought she saw her brow flicker disapprovingly, though she wasn't entirely sure.

She poured them some of the watered wine and placed a piece of chicken and a few carrots on her own plate.

"Are you honestly not going to marry him?"

"I'm not." It was as though she insisted on creating scandal everywhere she went.

"But you love him and he loves you. It's as plain as day." Her sister diverted her attention to dissecting a carrot with her fork. "So you're alright with your child being a bastard."

"What does that matter? Its father was a bastard, its uncle was a bastard, the originator of its father's house was a bastard."

"It?"

"Did you think I already had a name?" Sansa sighed and shook her head to return to the point at hand.

"A bastard of a bastard is nothing at all."

Arya looked repulsed.

"My child will _never_ be nothing," she snarled. "Besides, you're Queen in the North, you can just legitimize it. I'd like it to be a Stark… to be your heir." Even Sansa couldn't deny that the idea was tempting. She needed an heir, and in blood this would be just as much Stark as any child of her own.

"Arya, you cannot do that to Lord Gendry. And you certainly can't expect people to acknowledge this babe just because he's given a name by a queen in another kingdom. You know how we treated Jon-"

"How _you_ treated him, you mean." She didn't particularly feel like arguing with her younger sister. She had treated Jon cruelly at times, it was true, but even Arya had considered his status as a bastard shameful to their father. Jon himself had been embarrassed and ashamed of the disgrace he brought upon the great Northern house by not being a trueborn son of Lord Eddard Stark. Now it seemed Arya had forgotten all that. "You see how the liege lords disrespect Lord Gendry even though he was legitimized. The Stormlands will never allow this."

"Gendry knows my feelings on it - he took no issue."

"Of course he didn't. He's going to do and say whatever he thinks will keep you beside him." Arya didn't meet her eye; Sansa was right and she knew it.

"Honesty," she sighed, "You're not afraid of crossing the Sunset Sea or cutting throats, but silk dresses still terrify you. It's entirely without sense."

"It's not the silk dresses that worry me," her sister said in a strangely hollow tone. "I just don't want to have to be anyone else."

"Most people in this world will try to change you, I think we both know Lord Baratheon is not one of them." Gods knew Sansa would change her just a little if she could. She would be welcome to keep fighting, she could even wear trousers instead of dresses if she really insisted, but her cutting quips and refusal to acknowledge the realities of their world would disappear like ice thrown into a spring.

Arya palmed the thin sword on her hip absentmindedly and did not reply.

"I'm going to be an aunt." Sansa took a sip of the watered wine after the statement. It was a strange thought - her untamable little sister was now going to be a mother.

"We already are aunts," Arya said as she looked at her in silent accusation. She took a slab of the cold chicken and placed it on a massive chunk of bread.

Sansa sighed. "No we aren't, not really. Jon is technically our cousin, and that makes his son our cousin twice removed."

Her sister snapped her head from the plate to her angrily. "Jon is as much our brother as Bran. That makes his Robb your nephew. You're an aunt." _Always so defensive_.

They ate in relative silence as the cold winds howled as loudly as their house sigil. Sansa was reminded of Lady - she occasionally sat by her side still in dreams. Arya had found her direwolf, she had walked right through the gates as though it were still her home when they arrived from their journey on the kingsroad.

"If she's a girl are you going to name her Nymeria?"

Arya laughed lightly through her nose. "I've named a wolf and two ships after her already, I'm fairly certain doing so to a child would be considered repetitive."

"Catelyn then?" Her sister stilled, then shook her head sadly. "Or after your friend?"

"I think its given name ought to be something more Baratheon if it belongs to House Stark - that seems fair." _An oddly sweet consideration for a woman who slits throats and guts people without so much as a blink._

"Argella if she's a girl or Orys if he's a boy. They both seem fierce enough for you." It was all but decided.

Arya paused and put down the bread in her hand. "I don't think a bastard birthed by a Northern bitch should risk being named after a woman whom the Stormlands betrayed." Even from her, 'a northern bitch' sounded cruel.

"I suppose you're more Argella than your child would be anyways," Sansa reasoned, ignoring how her sister wrinkled her nose and looked at her in disapproval. "Strong and stubborn, facing death for her family's honor, bound to the Lord of the Stormlands. And obviously Gendry is Orys - that doesn't need to be said." She could feel a dreamy stare washing over her face. It was sweet, the way history repeated itself in her sister's love, sordid as it may be. They were as Robert and Lyanna may have been had things not gone so terribly wrong.

"Argella didn't _choose_ be to be bound to Orys, she was chained, stripped, and dragged to him because she refused to bend the knee to the Targaryens and their dragons. Even the Storm Queen was forced to wed against her will. And I can hardly see Gendry losing his hand and going about taking everyone else's." Arya always had to ruin these things. "There are less auspicious people in that house to name her after, Maris, or Elenei, or Cassana." Her voice slowed before she began the last word and raised her hand to her stomach, her face suddenly pale.

"I'll call the maester," Sansa said as she stood hurriedly.

"No. It's fine - I'm fine." Her sister sounded strangely preoccupied. "Sansa, it moved."

"Isn't it supposed to?" Arya exhaled a quick laugh and looked uneasy. Her eyes glinted in the light - were those tears?

Sansa had felt Bran and Rickon move under her mother's stomach as a child. She missed them - all of them - so dearly. Their mother with her stern but warm lessons and occasional twinkles of mirth beneath those blue eyes, Robb and his easy smile and loud laugh, Bran as a boy who loved to learn and climb, Rickon and his little hands and runny nose… She closed her eyes to remember them better.

"Do you know what Mother would say?"

Arya scoffed. "That I've brought great shame to our house?" Sometimes the Queen in the North forgot that her sister had maintained a very different bond with her mother than she had. Sansa couldn't blame them - her sister was a wild, feral thing as a child. She still was, in some ways, but nothing compared to the walking mass of fists, snarled hair, and mud that wreaked havoc in the castle in their youth.

"No," she corrected sharply. "That fate brought you together and the gods kept you that way." Never able to stomach romance, Arya rolled her eyes.

"Because Mother would see any positive outcomes from another attack on Bran's life."

"She might. She would certainly be proud that you're so devoted to keeping him safe. Father and Robb would be, as well." She placed her hand over Arya's.

"Mayhap," she responded so softly that Sansa could hardly hear her. The glint from earlier had been tears after all. They rolled now slowly from each eye, first the right and then the left. Arya closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, and Sansa squeezed her hand under her own.

.

.

.

**Gendry**

The winter winds never seemed to still outside of the walls of Winterfell. Gendry lay in the chambers he and Arya hadn't bothered pretending they weren't sharing, trying desperately to warm himself from the cold that had blasted his face on his way from the smithy to the Great Keep. He worked as much as he could while he was in the North. Mayhap due to habit and lack of other duties, or possibly just because it was the only thing that felt normal while everything else changed.

The furs and fire helped defeat the cold, but Arya helped more. She lay tucked beside him, her leg intertwined with and her face resting where her right hand folded over her extended left arm as she slept softly. For such a small person, she felt surprisingly warm - was that related to pregnancy, or did he just not notice until now?

She was pregnant. Expecting. With child. With _his_ child. _Carrying his child_. The news hadn't gotten less shocking since she first told him on the ship - he was excited, terrified, and elated all at once. How was a bastard smith whose mother had died when he was a child and whose father was a drunkard who sired over a dozen illegitimate offspring supposed to be a suitable parent? Davos assured him not to worry about that, it wasn't as though he had known how to be a lord either, after all, and he had done alright at that before Bronn turned everything to shit. _'Turned everything to shit'_ seemed harsh - it wasn't all bad, it had forced him and Arya back to each other.

Gendry looked down at her again and smoothed back a loose strand that had escaped its bun. Would their child have her brown hair or his black? Would it be small and fast like her, or strong and broad like him? Gods help them both if it had either of their obstinance.

Arya stirred against him and opened her eyes. She looked irritated.

"What?" She sounded it, too.

Gendry shook his head and thought again of that little life, the combination of them both growing inside her. His hand moved up and down the back of her neck aimlessly.

Arya rolled away and stretched out in the bed with a groan, then sighed and sat up. "I talked to Sansa." Her voice was still thick with sleep.

"Yes, you told me that the other day."

She made an annoyed face and spoke again, "That's not what - I talked to her again today… About the heir to Winterfell." Gendry waited for her to say more. It didn't bother him that the child would be Sansa's heir and not his - it wasn't as though they could never have another at some point. Even if they didn't, why should the Baratheon name afford someone an entire region of the Six Kingdoms? He hadn't somehow been better equipped once the Dragon Queen legitimized him. Gendry had to work hard to learn the needs and habits of his people - any decent lord ought to do the same. Then again, their child would have an advantage having been raised in Storm's End. And then there were the lords to think about, lords who had already shown their uselessness and lack of faith in his leadership even before the madness of the past few moons; they would struggle to accept that he had readily given up his child's right to the Stormlands.

His face must have given something away, because Arya looked to him with concern. "Sorry. Go on."

"She's convinced that you won't like it."

"Won't like what?"

Arya sighed at his inattention to whatever he was supposed to understand from the few sentences she had said. "That you won't like it being heir to the North rather than the Stormlands." Sometimes he wondered if she wanted him to argue with her - how many times had he already agreed to this?

"I like it just fine. You three are the last of House Stark and there's an entire independent kingdom at stake." She scanned him suspiciously. "The next one can be a Baratheon." They hadn't talked about that before, and her brows shot up to her hairline.

"The next one?" A warning tone ran through her voice.

"O-Only if you want that," he stammered. She pursed her lips and avoided his eye.

"Let's see how badly this one tears me apart before I even think about if I'd ever want another." Her hand rested on her stomach and she looked towards the large Stark sigil hanging on the south-facing wall. Gendry took a breath that stretched to the very base of his lungs. How had he forgotten how deadly childbirth could be? It was said a birthing bed could be bloodier than a battlefield, and he'd heard of countless women who used their final breath to finish bringing babes into the world. Not Arya, that couldn't happen to Arya.

"And will the North accept a bastard as their next king or queen?" The question put an end to his spiraling. His child would be the king or queen in the North - mayhap the Red Woman's promise to make kings rise and fall wasn't absolute bullshit like he had originally thought it to be.

"They accepted Jon just fine."

"Because Jon was raised here." She was intent to argue with him. He could just barely see it, some doubt or anxiety beneath her stare and feigned frustration.

"Do you want to raise this here then?" Gendry didn't see why he had to ask - she had told him she didn't thrice already.

Arya shook her head and tried to keep her teeth away from her lip. "It's just such a stupid concept. That somehow a child is worth less because its parents weren't married. Lyanna and Rhaegar wed in secret - for all intents and purposes they weren't married at all, but Bran and Maester Tarly find one mention of a ceremony and suddenly everyone is receiving ravens informing them that Jon is heir to the Iron Throne." She swallowed harder than usual and looked to him. "I won't be Lady Baratheon."

"We've established this." Arya's opposition to marriage was somewhat understandable considering the way women were so often expected to abandon their families and their true selves to wed. Still, it felt a little more personal with each insistence that she would remain a maid.

"I won't be the Lady of Storm's End." He looked away from her to keep from wearing his growing exasperation on his face.

"I think those are one and the same, Arya."

"And I won't wear gowns or let serving girls style my hair or pretend to like your lords at feasts." Gendry had no idea what she was talking about at this point. "Sometimes I might need to leave for a while, to feel the cold of the North or sail across the Narrow Sea." He turned back to her in confusion, surprised to see a face that looked more nervous than stubborn. "You're going to make me actually say it, aren't you?"

"Say what?" That she wouldn't marry him for the seventh time now? That she wanted to run around with her sword and not stay trapped in a castle mending cloaks and managing serving staff? He never wanted her to do those things in the first place. A brow rose impatiently to indicate she should continue.

"I'll do it." _Do what?_ There wasn't the chance to ask. "I'll marry you. But only because it will make life easier for… this." Gendry forgot how to breathe.

"What?" He asked like a fucking idiot.

"It doesn't really make a difference, I suppose. Not for me. I'll still be Arya Stark, I'll still be a wolf of the North who does as she pleases."

"But you'll…"

"I'll be wed, yes." She sounded mildly irritated again; Gendry realized she had probably expected him to cry with joy or do some other thing equally as stupid and celebratory. In truth he wanted to, he was just confused. Her lips were under his before he realized he had moved, her small head held between his hands.

"Are you going to resent this?"

"Probably." She shrugged and kissed him back. "We shouldn't wait. It will be a Northern wedding by the godswood, just us and a maester to confirm it happened."

"Don't we need cloaks?"

Arya made face and pulled away from him. "I hate that part. Does a cloak of House Baratheon suddenly afford me special security? Would it stop an arrow or keep me warmer than my own?" Of course she hated it. Gendry actually thought the gesture was quite sweet, a token of a promise to always protect and guard. _Are we really going to do this?_ She hadn't asked, just dove into it with the accurate assumption he'd be willing. "Fine, we can cloak each other." She conceded casually, before he'd even had a chance to argue, like she was negotiating the use of an item with her siblings and not entering a union before the gods.

"Mayhap your sister can have someone make some specially for it," he suggested. Arya looked at him like he had suggested she dig up Cersei's corpse and ask it for permission.

"Sansa can't know. Not until it's done."

"Arya," he breathed. She couldn't actually think her sister, the Queen in the North, would not be a part of this.

"She told of Jon's parentage within a day of swearing her secrecy even though she knew it would put his life at risk. Imagine how many people she'd tell that Arya Horseface had found herself wed to a handsome Lord Paramount." Gendry hadn't heard her mention that nickname since they first left Harrenhal; it seemed she was panicking about the idea of becoming someone she wasn't and projecting people's worst selves onto them to cope with it.

"I think she loves you and wants to see you happy. If you really want to do this, you ought to have her there." She pursed her mouth and looked towards the direwolf tapestry again. "You'll regret it later, you know." Gendry wasn't sure whether he meant the wedding or not including Sansa.

"Then we should do it tonight. If we make any plans she'll know, and if we ask for her help she'll find a way to fit half the North in the godswood."

"Tonight? It's the middle of the night."

"Aye, that's as good a time as any. Fewer people." Gendry felt his face fall again - he needed to learn how to control that. Arya noticed. "I just… marriage is about the people being wed, why should anyone else be a part of it? I'd be happiest if it could just be us and the weirwood."

"Who do we need?" He knew she'd want Jon there, but he was north of the Wall and she already explicitly stated that she wouldn't be waiting.

"And I won't have anyone give me away. It wouldn't make sense, anyway - I'm staying in House Stark."

"Davos." He answered his own question since she was answering ones in her own head rather than those he asked. Arya raised her left brow and tilted her head. "It's important to me that he be there." She nodded and left the bed to dress in the same leathers she had worn earlier that day, the rust-coloured ones she had worn to that feast in Storm's End. She didn't bother to bind her chest first, and the cords that laced up her shoulders barely tied from the strain of the material trying to contain the changes to her body.

Gendry followed suit, putting on the tunic that reminded him of thunderous skies, a gift from her brother. His brother soon, he realized. "Bran?" He asked her.

"If Bran wants to attend, he'll be there. We might have to rip him away from the Weirwood tree as it is."  
He'd hardly had the time to find the wool cloak he had discarded by the entry before Arya paused her opening of the door mid-swing.

"See you in the godswood," she said with a strange look on her face.

Gendry grabbed her wrist lightly as she began to cross through the door. "Do you really want to do this?"

Her soft kiss caught him off guard. "I do." And then she was gone, scurrying down the corridor to fetch her sister and the maester.

Gendry headed towards the guest chambers. He wasn't sure which would be Davos', but he was fairly certain the one with audible moans was Podrick's, and the next was left cracked open. Niiotha opened the following door with an impatient look on her face. "Wrong room," he told her before she rolled her eyes and went to close it. "Wait! Er… Arya and I are…" How did he tell her they were getting married with absolutely no preparation or warning. "We're having a wedding ceremony."

"Whose?" She was almost as thick skulled as he had been just a few minutes earlier.

"Whose? Ours. Why else would I -"

"When?"

"Now." Gendry ran his hand through some hair at the nape of his neck. It was still damp from sweat - he should have bathed after smithing. Now he'd be sweaty and probably a little soot-covered for his own wedding.

Niiotha nodded and opened the door the rest of the way. Palomai sat slumped against the wall, a map and a bottle next to him. "You're marrying her?" He said far too loudly. Gendry waited for some spiteful comment about how awful Westerosi weddings must be, but he simply raised the bottle high in the air. "That's fucking long overdue." After a swig, he loosely capped it and threw it too hard towards Gendry. There wasn't time to yell about the fact it could have caved his head in or sit around and drink with them. He caught it with one hand and took a swallow - it was somehow both sickeningly sweet and extremely strong - then told them to come with if they wished to. Palomai elected to stay, but Niiotha followed. He hoped Arya wouldn't mind that he had invited them. Surely they were important enough to her.

The corner room was Davos', which Gendry probably should have known by the fact he was owed the best guest room out of age and status.

"Fuckin' hells, do you know what time it is?" The Onion Knight mumbled as he came to the door. He wore only a thin night shirt, and wiry white hairs poked through the top of it. Gendry said a silent prayer that he wouldn't look like that one day.

"I need you," Gendry said. What would Davos think of the actual purpose? He liked Arya well enough and had said no harsh words about her pregnancy - he even admitted he had some suspicions of his own before Gendry had told him. Still, an unannounced wedding was aberrant even for her. "You'll want a cloak... and maybe a real tunic. We're going outside," he warned when the older man shuffled out of the room in his night clothes. A moment later, he returned in a tunic, boots, and a thick fur cloak. Gendry did his best to explain as they walked out of the castle.

A thin layer of ice over the snow crunched beneath his boots as they entered the godswood. The air was cold enough to burn his nostrils with the first few breaths, and it was so dark he could not differentiate between the young weirwoods and birch trees scattered amongst hulking pines and grey sentinel trees - truly a Northern place.

They were not the first to arrive in the heart of grove. Bran sat in his chair as usual, though he was a bit farther from the massive weirwood tree than their conversation two days prior. Cool eyes met his with a knowing but chilling smile. "Lord Baratheon," the King said. He looked back to the entry before Gendry had a chance to respond. Arya walked in with a casual gait, seeming as though she were going to another strategy meeting and not her own marriage ceremony. She was in the same leathers he saw her leave in - had he expected anything different? - and an annoyed-looking Sansa and seemingly confused maester followed.

"You're _not_ getting married with your hair like that," Niiotha half-shouted, her brows furrowed and lips pulled back in horror.

"We've tried this conversation already," the Queen in the North sighed.

Gendry didn't care what her hair looked like or that her cloak had blood stained along the neckline and left side - she was perfect. Arya fucking Stark wanted to marry him - she had been the one to suggest it this time. They were going to have a child that would never know the pain of hunger or the terrors of tyranny… she was coming to the Stormlands with him.

The two of them walked to the heart tree and stood before it. Gendry hadn't spent much time here, the first time he had seen it was only three days before when he met with Bran to discuss the plan to bring him to Storm's End until the Capital was safe; he hadn't noticed the twisted, crying face carved into its trunk then. The heart tree of Storm's End ought to have a face, too, but that coward Stannis Baratheon had burned the grove to the ground at the order of the Red Woman. The new Lord of the Stormlands ordered them replaced early in his acquisition of the castle, but even after four years the saplings were too small to withhold any carving.

"You sure about this?" Gendry asked once more.

"Stop asking me that."

"Who comes before the old gods tonight?" Asked Winterfell's maester as he stepped out from behind the Queen in the North. What was his name, again? _Wolfred? Wulker?_

"We're not doing that bit." Arya did not attempt to hide her contempt for the sections left unsaid.

She untied and loosened the strings of her cloak and looked at him with something that seemed to resemble hope shining from her eyes and the upturned corners of her mouth. Gendry felt his own face grin as he unclasped his cloak and bent for Arya to slip hers over his head. It looked ludicrous, he knew, hardly even skimming his calves, but it didn't matter. A fine cloak sat unused in his wardrobe at Storm's End - an garish thing of yellow-gold silk and black satin. Gendry never wore it lest he be mistaken for a giant bumblebee, but now he wished he had brought it with him if only to have something proper to drape over Arya rather than the practical black wool he wore now. Nonetheless, he clasped it around her shoulders and followed her lead as she knelt before the tree.

"What do we do?" He whispered, unfamiliar with most weddings at all, never mind ancient Northern customs.

"Pray."

Gendry was not religious. He had been sold to a fire priestess, seen the Faith Militant beat and torture innocent people whose lifestyles were not in alignment with their beliefs, seen a king know the future because of some connection to Northern deities of old, and was said himself to be descended from Storm Gods - prayer was simply not a part of his life. For the sake of their union, he let it be for just a moment. He prayed for safety, for health, for a good harvest, for winter to be short and mild, for his people and all those in the realm and beyond to be secure and content; most of all, he prayed for Arya, for an easy birth of their child, for her not to feel trapped by her decision to stay with him in Storm's End, for her to love him as he loved her.

A minute or two later and Arya's hand was in his, squeezing it to alert him that they were done. It was over, they were joined before the old gods, the Citadel, and those who mattered most. The Stormlands may be difficult to recover, but he was married to Arya Stark - there was nothing they couldn't do.

Long ago she had offered to be his family, and in many ways she always had been. Now it was official. They were wed; she was his just as much as he was hers, at least as much as the laws of gods and men mattered to Arya.


	13. Chapter 13 - Storm's End IV

_Chapter XIII - Storm's End IV_

**Arya**

Storm's End was practically boiling compared to Winterfell. A system of Southron wind had pushed up the hot air of Dorne and stifled Arya as though she were surrounded by sand and burning sun rather than sea and stone. It was Winter, well in the middle of it at that, but she felt as though she was trapped within an oven.

"I thought they were called the Stormlands for the weather," she complained as she opened another window in the chambers she now shared with Gendry. The serving staff had closed it to prevent hot air from coming in during the day, but it was late enough at night for a cool breeze to put a damper on her sweltering. It would have been proper to maintain her own chambers rather than share his, as her parents and any respectable lord and lady always did. But Arya had never been proper and she certainly wasn't a lady; she had no intentions of starting now.

"Give it a day."

She turned and rolled her eyes. "It's been nearly a week."

"Maester Forreal says summers here are hotter than King's Landing when the sky is clear - you might have chosen the wrong husband." Arya knew it was in jest, but she had seen the disbelief return to his face since the moment she first suggested they wed in the North nearly a month prior. Though the chambers were large, it took only a second to cross to where he was undressing.

"Right husband, wrong region," she said with a reassuring smile before kissing him.

Gendry paused the doffing of his leathers and held her gently by the backs of her arms to keep her still long enough to kiss her a second time.

"I think all those clothes make it worse." He was right. Arya still wore a loose wool cloak atop her new black boiled leather doublet and matching leather bottoms. It was much too hot for such a thing, and she knew her arms were odd bare and protruding from the billowing sleeves, but the loose folds hid her growing stomach better than anything else.

The cloak found its way to a heap by the bed, quickly joined by every other layer until her skin felt the breeze of the open window.

"We're going to have to tell them eventually," he said as he looked her over as though he didn't see her naked every day. She sat upon the edge of their bed and smoothed her hand over the cool satin sheets. Gendry hated this texture - he said it made him feel slippery and that there was no grip for anything but sleeping - but he asked the staff to bring them up for the heat after her first sleepless night.

Arya thought Gendry might argue more about this, but for the first time in days he let the matter be. She'd heard all his points: a child couldn't be acknowledged as legitimate if no one knew its parents were married, his liege lords were unlikely to listen to her until they knew they had been wed, the longer they waited the more people would question why it was hidden from them… he had so many damn reasons. But tonight he seemed less inclined to argue; he simply sat beside her to move her hair to one side of her neck and kiss where the exposed side met her shoulder.

"It's too hot for that," she said when his hands began to roam her body.

"True… But you'll sleep soundly if we do." She smirked and turned to kiss him more deeply than she had before. Fucking did always lead to a good night's sleep.

It worked as it always did, and when they had finished she did not wake again until the sun had broken past the sea.

They were to meet with the lords again that day - it would be Arya's first official meeting as the wife of their Lord Paramount, though they weren't aware of that. She arrived early, immediately after training in the yard with Niiotha and Palomai. Sweat still glued her hair to her neck when she entered the room.

Lords Arstan Selmy and Harys Kellington were the only ones to arrive before her. The well-dressed men exchanged a look of confusion, then nodded at Arya. At least they hadn't called her 'my lady.'

Two lords Arya didn't know yet entered next, then the younger two Wylde lords. Arya did her best to keep from snarling as she remembered their eldest brother in Bronn's chambers and the way Yuisaraq's eyes had faded from the world not long after. More lords, some recognizable and some not, poured in until there were nearly two dozen men chattering away. Most sat in sturdy chairs that she thought might be made of cherry and maple, though the Wylde brothers stood separate from the rest. Gendry arrived last. The lords ought to have stood for his entrance, but they did not. Not a promising start. Arya looked at him and took up the seat beside his.

The meeting did not go well. Although he had already met with many of them individually, the lords had endless questions about why Gendry had left the Capital - it seemed '_To protect the King_' was not sufficient - or why he had gone to Winterfell rather than return to his own region. He had abandoned them while they were surrounded by enemies on all sides, Lord Buckler accused. Their lord's patience surprised Arya, who had already considered stabbing the lot of them before they had even begun speaking. Seemingly slightly less comfortable with murder, Gendry let the lords say their piece before responding with an even tone. Where was this patience whenever they argued?

"The Stormlands will continue hosting His Grace until the Capital has been reclaimed," he said to Lord Ronnel Rogers after he claimed Gendry had put them at risk by hosting the King. "Lord Wylmar Dondarrion has Davos' strategic input, and Lord Norrey will arrive with the Northern forces within a fortnight."

"And why aren't you with them?" The lord fired back, his ginger curls falling limply to the side of his head as he shook it in anger and looked at Arya before continuing, "Too cowardly to face the Dornish." Her blood boiled at his words.

"You will show my husband respect - you owe him your allegiance and your life," she spat angrily. Gendry's brows shot up and he twisted his head to stare at her in disbelief. For all her insistence that she did not want anyone to know they had wed, it was she who announced it.

"Husband?" Murmured Lord Kellington.

"I knew he got you pregnant," Lord Sebastion Errol said with disdain. His twig-like arms folded over his overly decorated maroon doublet as he spoke.

"So now we have to listen to a Northern whore just because he put a babe in her belly?" Asked the still enraged Lord of Amberly.

Arya had heard enough.

"Which would you prefer, Lord Rogers, a babe in my belly or my dagger in yours?"

The room burst into commotion at her threat. Gendry sighed deeply and covered her thigh beneath the table with his hand.

Arya had never enjoyed politics. Still, she had to try to be reasonable for a moment. Intimidation was fun, but they'd lose what little support they had left if she let it be her only method.

"Is that what you all think? That I was dragged back here because your lord thought with his cock? Because he ought to have spilled on my stomach or ensured I had an endless supply of moon tea?" Many of them blanched at her indelicacy, though the middle Wylde lord snickered and a man she didn't know nodded approvingly. "I will only say this once, so keep it in your mind and spread it as you like… I know you all gossip more than fishmongers' wives. I am here because of love, not duty. There is more affection in this union than there ever would have been in a political arrangement with Dorne or whomever you hoped would marry your lord. I am not your lady, I am still a Stark in name and blood alike. And if any of you make things difficult for my husband or our child, my blade will find you in the night." She hadn't meant to threaten them again, it just slipped out.

The hand on her thigh caressed the leg beneath its grasp. Violent outbursts or not, she would be sleeping well again tonight.

The lords sat in silence as they took in her words. Now was the time to get it all out, she realized. "There will be certain changes in the Stormlands as long as I'm a …. leader." Gendry coughed to cover up his laughter at her refusal to use the word "lady" and she resisted the urge to elbow his ribs. "Henceforth we shall train girls just as we do boys. Your daughters will learn to swing a sword and shoot a bow. If you refuse to find them a swordmaster, I will personally instruct any girl who wishes to learn."

"Is this a jest?" Asked Lord Grandison.

"Our lady for one day and you already want to kill our daughters," scoffed a lord in purple velvet whose name escaped Arya. She had met him during Gendry's second day of petitions and hated him then, too.

"I want to teach them to protect themselves, not kill them."

The youngest Wylde lord cleared his throat from where he leaned by a window thrice his height.

"If I may, the Stormlands are home to the only lady knight in the six kingdoms. Between la- Ser Brienne of Tarth and our new lady, it seems we have no shortage of soldier women for the girls to take after." He had called her lady and somehow thought two women were 'no shortage,' but he was more favourable than the others. Mayhap he was less guilty of his brother's sins than she had first assumed.

The other lords did not argue, though some looked at her though narrowed eyes.

"My Lord, a suggestion if you'll hear it." Gendry nodded at the liege lord who asked, a portly man with wisps of grey hair along the sides of an otherwise bare head. "With Dorne and the Reach focusing their armies on the retention of the Capital, this could be an opportunity to expand the Stormlands."

"The Stormlands' borders have stood where they do for hundreds of years, the marshes provide a natural border," their lord responded.

"They don't have to. Strike now while they're weak, give the Stormlands the grandeur they deserve." Arya didn't like that suggestion. They were already at war until her brother returned to King's Landing, and the move he suggested would create enemies for generations. What of those who lived in the areas he wanted to claim? Would they take to suddenly being a Stormlander?

Gendry seemed to agree with her though she hadn't said anything aloud. "No," he said with a slight shake of his head. "No, we shall remain as we are."

"Surely the usurpers should be punished."

"Aye, but it is for the kingdom to decide what to do with The Reach and Dorne, not me. Millions of smallfolk will bear the brunt of whatever we do - I shan't be responsible for any more of their suffering."

Arya felt a small smile creep onto her face. His concern for the commoners was her favourite thing about his leadership, she realized.

"And what of our own betrayers?" Lord Wylde visibly swallowed as the other man spoke.

Gendry shifted uncomfortably in his seat before speaking. They had spoken of his plan before, but the lords wouldn't approve of it as she had.

"Houses Wylde, Pennington, and Staedmon shall go to the next respectable heir… be that heir man or woman."  
"You cannot give a house to a lady," Lord Rogers argued.

"It would be as much her house as any brother's," Arya said, thinking of her sister and what a disservice it would have been for her to yield Winterfell to Bran.

"This is her doing," muttered the purple-clad lord again.

"They allow daughters to inherit in Dorne," Arya reminded him.

"Aye, but they also eat snake and spread their legs for every passerby. We are not Dornish."

"The eldest child will inherit regardless of their sex." Gendry clearly wanted to stop an argument before it devolved into violence.

"Lords Wylde, I will leave it to you to determine what to do with your brother should he return from King's Landing. If you decide to follow in his footsteps, you shall be stripped of your titles and lands. In the instances of those houses who do not have heirs, the holdfast and title shall be given to a deserving member of the smallfolk."

"You cannot be speaking in earnest," protested Lord Kellington, two deep lines creased between his white eyebrows.

"I am. And I'll not consider anything else."

"But my lord, they do not know how to rule. They may not read or know their sums - how are they to manage a holdfast?"

Gendry sighed and removed his hand from Arya's leg to run it through his hair. She knew he would have reminded him that he hadn't had experience before becoming their lord if they were on better terms.

"They will learn. All great houses started as commoners at some point." Arya didn't bother mentioning the fact that they both were descended from men who were kings before bending the knee, not smallfolk.

The men grew terse and increasingly difficult. After what felt like half a day but was likely only an hour or two, they agreed to meet semiweekly until the King was returned to his castle and the realm was secure in its peace. Infuriatingly, most of the lords addressed her as their lady when they exited.

Once the room was empty, Gendry moved in his chair to face her.

"Your blade will find them in the night?" He said to her, a smirk firmly planted on his face.

"Do you doubt it?"

The smirk turned into a grin. "Definitely not." He lowered his head to hers and kissed her well enough that she thought they might even use the table or chair in place of a bed. She had just started to shift her leg over his so she might straddle him when a knock on the door interrupted them.

"Pardon the interruption my lord." Pylon was back. He had been oddly silent throughout the earlier meeting, but clearly had something to say now. "And my lady," he added awkwardly as Arya took her leg back to her own chair. "The meeting with Yomen Lonmouth regarding grain storage is to start shortly."

Gendry nodded and looked back to Arya. "You want to come?"

She didn't. Still, she knew she had little choice if she wanted to be taken seriously, so she followed Pylon down the stone corridor, wishing all the while that it could just be her and Gendry on that table with no clothes and no interruptions.

It took over two moonturns for the Capital to be recovered. All the while, Arya grew used to life in the Stormlands. The rain had driven out the stifling heat that had made its way from the South; she began to feel comforted by the monstrous storms that wrecked sea upon the walls of the castle and rumbled thunder so loud that the floors trembled with each bellow.

Such a storm was raging on this night. Arya had stood with Niiotha and Palomai on the west-facing balcony until she was so soaked that she trailed water behind her as she returned to her room alone to watch the lightning over the sea. It struck something out in Shipbreaker Bay and lit the sky with a stunning white fork.

The light was bright enough to etch itself upon her eyes, and for a moment it was all she could see - a flash of purplish yellow filtered over everything she saw until her eyes closed long enough for it to fade away. The shape was similar to those caused by the growth of her womb, new scars the colour of summer wine that trailed along her stomach and covered the knife marks she had earned long ago in Braavos. _Scars for life rather than death._ She knew she ought to hate the new ridges, but they reminded her of the views of her home when she used to climbed the highest trees - rivers cutting through snow like deep, dark snakes. The babe inside of her was making her stupidly sentimental, and suddenly she found the whole thing poetic. Rivers and snow: her mother and father, the lightning: her husband, and all of it blended within her to form a child.

Tears stabbed at her eyes and she nearly cackled in frustration. Every day was like this, crying or yelling or grinning for no reason at all. Arya stared out at the sea as she let the tears stream down her face; it was best to just let them happen and hope they passed quickly.

Two sets of footsteps sounded softly before growing louder after opening the solar door. She knew without hearing their voices that it was Gendry and Maester Forreal - Gendry always walked quickly and loudly, and Maester Forreal favoured his left side. She wiped her face and listened to the two men speaking outside of her chambers.

"We'll begin with the preparations, my lord. I will send someone to update you when the party is prepared for the journey." She knew this would happen eventually - it had to - but that didn't make it any better. Ravens had been coming to tell them King's Landing was nearly ready for weeks, and it seemed those in the Capital were finally sure enough in their work to welcome the King.

Gendry thanked him and entered the room.

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" He asked as he unfastened his wet cloak and draped it over a chair. It wasn't really that dark, she had lit one thin candle on the writing desk though the torches and rest of the candles remained untouched.

"Just watching the storm."

"I'm sure it's a novel experience," he scoffed before sitting beside her. His hands brought her face to his for a soft kiss. "Are you crying?"

"I'm always crying nowadays."

Gendry looked at her curiously for a moment before turning his attention to the white flashes out the window. "But you're alright?"

"Mhm."

They leaned against one another in a silence only broken by rolls of thunder until her lids grew heavy. At some point she must have fallen asleep, because Arya woke a while later with her head in his lap. They needed to talk about the plan for bringing Bran to the Capital, but she was just too tired. Gendry's rough hands were soft in her hair, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep without interruption.

The storm made its way closer to them; neither she nor Gendry felt the need to close the window for rain; the bed was far enough away from the window to keep them warm and dry. She got up just long enough to remove her last layer of clothing and slipped beneath the blankets to bury her face against his chest and fall deep asleep.

The rest was a short-lived. Her unborn child felt the need to wake her after a few hours, and she prodded it to try to quell its insufferable movements - there couldn't possibly be enough room in there for it to do the acrobatic routine it seemed to insist on practicing. Poking it only made it more excited, and it stuck an elbow or mayhap a knee back where she had touched. Gendry had no such problems, and breathed deeply in his sleep beside her as she lay awake. The thunder had stopped, but lightning still occasionally gave a weak spark in the distance. Arya tried to focus on the rain and ignore the bouncing creature inside of her. It was no use.

An hour or two later, Gendry woke enough to wrap an arm around her. Their child had stopped its performance, but she was irritated and still awake.

"Why are you up?" He murmured against her hair. It was not yet dawn.

She grunted and laid defiantly still on her side. His other hand trailed down her spine and she felt a pull towards sleep. Mayhap she could wait until the sun rose to discuss her brother's journey. Slumber pulled her back.

When she woke for good, Gendry was still wrapped tightly around her. She slithered out of his arms and filled a chalice of water to ease the acidic burning in her chest. The sudden absence woke him, and he slowly came back to life with a series of groggy stretches and moans.

"When do we leave?" She asked as soon as he finished rubbing his eyes.

"Hm?" He was still half asleep. "Come back to bed." She ignored him.

"When do we make for King's Landing?" Gendry sighed heavily and propped himself up against the dark wooden headboard.

"We?" She had known he'd do this, that he'd try to suggest she shouldn't come with just because she was pregnant. An impatient stare was her only response. "You can't be serious."

"I'm not staying here. I'm seeing my brother safely back to his throne."

"Arya, look at you. You really think you'll ride to the Capital like that?"

"I still have two moons until I bring this into the world and Niiotha says the first one is often delayed anyway," She fumed. "I won't jeopardize Bran just because -"

"Bran has four of the six kingdoms and the North on his side. Surely we can spare one person."

"Not when that person is me."

"You can't just act like nothing is different - what if something happens? What if your horse stumbles or someone ambushes us or-"

"If someone ambushes you I need to be there for you and Bran," she half-shouted. Her hands were balled up into tight fists as she glowered at him.

"We can handle ourselves. We're not discussing this." He tilted his head back against the wood and took a deep, frustrated breath.

"You promised you wouldn't be like this."

"Wouldn't be like what? Wouldn't prevent you from giving birth on the side of the kingsroad?" He asked incredulously, half mocking her and half in disbelief that she thought she was capable of a simple ride.

"And if something happens to you, then what? I have the child and go to the North? Or I rule the Stormlands alone?"

He lowered his chin to look at her and pushed his thick black hair from his face.

"Is that what you're actually worried about? Nothing is going to happen to me."

In truth she _was_ worried about him, but his refusal to accept that she would join him made her angrier. She was able to fight - that was what she was best at.

Gendry was good at loving people, he never had to remind himself to care or talk himself out of leaving in the middle of the night. Love didn't take effort for him, it just happened. But that wasn't true of Arya. Some part of her, really most of her, was increasingly worried that she lacked whatever it was that made parents love their children unconditionally. What if her child hated her? What if she was too distant or too critical and it ran away rather than put up with her? Gendry would always be there for them both, he'd remind Arya and their child both that she could care and love. If something happened to him and he wasn't there to do that…

"Tell you what. Why don't you ask Niiotha and Maester Forreal both whether they think it's a good idea?" His tone assured her that he already knew they'd say no.

"I don't need anyone to tell me what I'm capable of." She was angry again and threw on a cloak and boots without bothering to dress fully beneath. There was only one person who would tell her the unbiased truth, and she knew exactly where to find him.

.

.

.

**The Three Eyed Raven**

It would take centuries for the weirwoods in Storm's End to be anywhere near the size of Winterfell's heart tree. Lord Baratheon had trusted the Three Eyed Raven with alarming blindness, telling his groundsmen to put the trees wherever the King requested. It was clear which would become the heart tree - it was not the largest of the saplings, but called to him with a strange allure. He was certain it was the same one from his visions.

The godswood was well healed from the damage done by Stannis Baratheon in the decade prior; moss again blanketed large stretches of ground, and the trees were growing quite well for winter. It was clear that the Lord of Storm's End had no knowledge of horticulture, but somehow that almost made the scene more calming. Small, tight-knit groves of trees stood on their own, circles of peeling birches amidst faster-growing pines and less organized groups of ironwoods.

The sun climbed higher into the sky as he waited for his sister. She'd be storming in any minute now just as intensely as the region's namesake.

"I need you to answer some questions for me," Arya said loudly when she entered the grove.

"Hello sister." He did not need to look at her to see her roll her eyes.

"Tell me." She approached him cautiously, as though it might affect what he already knew. "And don't pretend to not know exactly what I need to know."

The Three Eyed Raven _did_ know, but he could not say.

Arya wanted to know if her child would be healthy, if things would pass without harm despite her staying in the Stormlands, if her husband would be safe.

"Bran…" Her voice trailed off and he knew she was taking his silence as the worst.

It was unwarranted - they would all be fine. Her future was one he would have thought she'd find quite boring, but mayhap she had already known enough adventure.

Five children she would bear, though seven in total would try to form within her. Of those she brought into the world, three would be Starks and two would be Baratheons. One would rule the Six Kingdoms, one the North, one Storm's End. The fourth child would be a sweet thing; a kind hearted, wide-grinning boy named for Lord Eddard Stark, and the only brunette one of the lot. He would serve his brother, the King in the North, as a liaison both to the South and to those north of the Wall. Born at sea, the fifth and youngest would never feel satisfied in Westeros and would go on to sail down past the Summer Isles, east even of the Basilisk Isles, until one day she was to decide she'd like to see the lands her mother had visited just before she was born. That girl would explore the West and never return to Westeros, though her eldest sister would check on her from time-to-time in the way only she could.

"I need to know." It was for the best that Arya had never developed her own greenseeing potential.

"I can't tell you that."

"But you know."

"I do."

The leaves of the weirwood he sat closest to were so small that three would not fully fill his hand. Still, their scarlet leaves were almost mesmerizing in the wind and rain.

"Bran, please. If something bad is going to happen I'd have you tell me." She was near tears. His poor sister, her emotions were twisted up every which way from the child. This would be the worst of her pregnancies. Three Eyed Ravens always were. His own mother, or Brandon Stark's, at least, had felt similarly when she carried her middle son - a mess of nerves and tears and anger as her son tried to make sense of his confinements. That was part of why Bran had always been Catelyn Stark's favourite, because she had been riddled with anxieties about what might happen to him from the the moment he first formed.

Lady Stark was used to feeling fear before her pregnancy; Arya was not.

The Three Eyed Raven had known she'd have children since before he returned from beyond the Wall, known they'd be Gendry Baratheon's the minute he locked eyes with the smith in the yards of Winterfell. A vision the night before the Dragonpit told him that their first child would one day lead the Six Kingdoms, and when she sailed West he realized that the man who ruled beside her would not be from the known continents. It wasn't until he dared to investigate the future Three Eyed Raven that he learned the full extent of their firstborn's fate. He had seen her while he avoided the happenings of Yara's Rebellion - black of hair, grey of eye, tall and strong, stubborn but kind, and always inquisitive. When he briefly checked back into the real world, he saw those same sharp cheekbones and jawline in his throne room: the face of a Baratheon.

The King had nearly doubted his visions when Arya remained in the West a year longer than he had foreseen; he began to wonder if she would somehow find ways to disobey her destiny when she didn't arrive in the Capital at the same time as the annual great council meeting. If anyone would find a way to avoid their fate it would be Arya. And so he had pushed - just a little - to remind her where she belonged. Gendry was easier than Arya, he was practically magnetized to his path, always drawn to the youngest Stark sister like a moth to flame. But she was different. She had to think it was her idea, had to be reminded of the way things changed and convinced it was all harmless kindness and curiosity that led her to her future husband. The Master of Coin's decision to act on his greed and arrogance was purely coincidental in timing. The Raven had known the Lord of the Reach would rebel, but he hadn't taken the time to realize how it would play so perfectly into his sister's future. Explicitly making them cross paths would have gone beyond his role, but a few hints and suggestions seemed within reason - the Bloodraven had fetched him through visions, after all.

The union of Storm Gods and First Men was long overdue. The bloodlines had been pulled together before, even nearly a century earlier than Robert and Lyanna, but never had their joining been successful. Arya Stark and her beloved bastard smith managed it, and they would have merged the lineages sooner if Gendry hadn't been made a lord.

Now his sister stood beside him impatiently, with those same grey eyes with which her daughter would stare at him during their lessons, only Arya's marbled with swirls of fear and fury.

"Bran!"

He sighed and calmly met her gaze. "I cannot tell you these things."

"I'm your bloody sister. You have to tell me." He didn't have to do anything.

"It would be a misuse of my role. The Three Eyed Raven always remains objective."

"Fuck being objective, this is my child and the man I love. Tell me." She was a fully grown woman, but at her core Arya Stark remained that little girl who had stood up for smallfolk and dreamed of running with wolves in Winterfell. Full of life with hints of a worrisome capacity for darkness.

He only shook his head. For a moment she paused, and he waited for her to begin. This would not be an enjoyable conversation for either of them.

"What else have you kept to yourself to remain objective?" Her voice had taken on a cooler note, but he could hear the disgust beneath it. "Did you know how this war would end?"

"I did."

"But you couldn't bother sharing that information with us? People died for you, Bran. They didn't have to." She was thinking of her friend, that quiet, observant woman from the West who would go on to guide her first daughter through dreams. He had seen her death, too, but victory always required sacrifice.

"What about the Dragon Queen's attack on King's Landing? You let us ride South knowing that would happen?" When he didn't answer she crossed her arms and inhaled a shaky breath. "Over a hundred thousand people. You let them all die so you could 'remain objective?'"

The Three Eyed Raven kept silent. Whatever was left of Bran Stark had tried to convince him to stop the burning of the Capital long before Daenerys Stormborn arrived in the North. The future was not something you changed, it happened as it was meant to - changing something as catastrophic as the Burning of King's Landing might do as much harm as good, or it might be utterly fruitless. It was best not to bother.

Arya's breaths were irregular as she processed the fact that he had known. She must have figured it out already, she had just convinced herself it wasn't true.

"If you'd like to stay more informed, I'm in need of a new Master of Whispers." She touched her stomach lightly and looked at him.

"No. I won't move to the Capital, I hardly even wanted to move here." She would, he knew, at least in all but title. A the Three Eyed Raven, he hardly needed that role, but there were no weirwoods in the East and she spoke Braavosi well enough to bring back reports from across the Narrow Sea.

As for Storm's End, Arya would grow to love this place almost as much as she loved their childhood home. Summers would be difficult for her, but she would get used to them. This Winter still had seven years remaining, and the hottest years of summer would not come for nearly two decades - by then she would want to be nowhere else. She would bring her children with her whenever she went north, and it would take Gendry's unyielding refusal to stop her from bringing their children with them when they journeyed to the West in four years. No matter what she thought now, she would one day yearn for nothing more but the storms of Shipbreaker Bay colliding into the walls of this castle.

"You are Arya Stark of Winterfell, but you are home." She wasn't as affected by things like that as Sansa, and only glanced at him for a moment before looking to the red-leafed saplings.

The storm that had ravaged the castle grounds earlier was but a drizzle now, coating their skin in moisture until they were as wet a the trees and water-soaked ground.

Arya leaned against the Three Eyed Raven's wheeled chair and put her hand on his arm. The sun rose in the east, and its rays lit the voiding clouds a brilliant orange akin to flame. They stood in the godswood in near silence, the sounds of dripping water and a light breeze the only thing keeping them from pure stillness.

Arya squeezed his arm slightly and leaned against the chair.

"I miss Bran," she said quietly. Of course she did. When he tried to think on it, he could just barely remember the joy of running through the halls of Winterfell with a tiny Arya. She had taken the blame for his accidental chaos twice, once when he broke a tray of dishes in the kitchens and once when he missed his lessons because he was wedged between parts of the castle less suited for climbing than he had hoped.

"So do I."

The concept of fairness was unreasonably unattainable - it was simply a false concept made by those who needed excuses to rationalize their behavior or determine the best course of action. Still, the Three Eyed Raven at times felt he had been cheated in losing himself There were times, and they were not infrequent, that he wished he could go back to being that boy who had died in the cave. Mayhap he would let his successor keep a bit more of herself.

.

.

.

**Gendry**

"My lord we must break for the night." Ser Wylmar Dondarrion shouted from his black courser. The rain drenched his amber curls and dragged them to hang limply over his face, small streams of water dipping from each strand.

"Bronzegate cannot be more than three leagues away. Once we reach the castle we can expect House Buckler to host us until the dawn."

Lord Ralph Buckler was not keen on much Gendry had done in the past few months, or even before that, but he wasn't a fool enough to deny his Lord Paramount a night's shelter.

They had to get back to Storm's End. If it were up to him, they would stop only to change horses.

The final stage of the Capital's reclamation had taken longer than he hoped, and with Ser Brienne still on Tarth, Gendry and Podrick had split the duty of guarding the King. He had been exhaustingly busy, disappointingly not even finding the time to visit Ryland, Melyra, and their new babe. He hadn't held an infant in all his life, and this had seemed a good opportunity to practice. A messenger sent them a bag of coins, though this one was more silver stags and copper stars than the last two.

Three weeks passed before Bran was sufficiently returned enough for the Lord of the Stormlands to leave, and there had been a week of travel each way. By now Arya would have a moon's turn left before she was expected to have their child, and that was assuming nothing went wrong to make it come sooner. He assumed things must be alright, since no one had sent him a raven to tell him otherwise. Arya hadn't written at all beyond one scroll that arrived three days before they departed.

_Gendry,_

_This is taking too long. It would be done already if I had been involved._

She hadn't even bothered to sign the letter, not that she needed to. He had written her once each week, nothing overly-detailed, just updates on their progress and assurances that he missed her; she did not reply. He didn't take it personally, or at least he told himself he didn't. She hadn't responded to his updates on Bran when she first returned to Winterfell, either - it was possible she simply didn't enjoy letters.

Now they were within an hour of Bronzegate, they'd arrive at Storm's End late the next day assuming they left at dawn. If the impending birth of his child wasn't enough to drive him forward, he'd had an idea that he should have thought of ages earlier: a way to get his lords, serving staff, and smallfolk from calling his wife a lady.

Lord Buckler did not personally receive them when they arrived, though his cousin Brus took them in and offered bread and warmed fermented cider despite the late hour.

Gendry was too impatient to sleep, so he laid awake in his room for hours and tried his best to ignore the lingering reek of mildew seeping from the stone walls. Finally he drifted off just long enough to dream of the outline of Arya's face before he was being woken by a serving boy who wanted to inform him it was time to break his fast and begin the next segment of their ride.

Lord Buckler attended the morning meal and managed to turn it from a time to eat to a time to discuss his concerns with the future of the realm. Exhausted and pressed for time, Gendry struggled to comprehend a single word the man said to him.

Finally, when the sun was already much too high, they made their way to the stables to finish their ride south.

They reached Storm's End later than he first thought, partially because of Lord Buckler's never-ending complaints and partially because the storms had left the ground slick with nearly half a foot of mud.

Arya was not in their chambers when he finally shrugged past Pylon long enough to make his way up the stairs and towards the entry to his solar.

Wendyll entered the room soon after him with a pitcher of ale.

"Do you know where I might find my wife?" Gendry asked the boy.

"Lady Baratheon was with the foreigners in their chambers last I saw." He thanked him and awkwardly corrected him on Arya's title, then walked as quickly as he could to the south wing.

Which chambers had Pylon assigned them? For the life of him he couldn't remember. The fourth attempted worked, and Palomai opened the door with a surprised expression. He called for Arya, who shuffled over with a series of mutters about having just had handled some string of minor inconveniences.

When she saw her husband, her face looked almost sorrowful before she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him as close as she could despite her swollen stomach.

"What took so long?" She asked after kissing him.

"The fucking Dornish. It's settled now that Davos got involved." Thank every god worshipped out there for Davos and his patient negotiating.

Arya didn't bother saying anything to her friends before she began walking towards their chambers.

"Good night!" Niiotha yelled angrily through the still-open door.

The weeks between his departure and his return had clearly not gone quickly for Arya. She pushed her weight against the handrail to make her way up the stairs. Her face had grown softer - a wider nose and lips so swollen that he couldn't see the scar beneath them. Gendry had never seen her so debilitated. He knew trying to help would only make her angry, so he just waited atop the flight and tried to keep his face from looking worried.

"I'm fine," Arya said when he smiled at her. So much for that.

Their chambers were warm and dry compared to the storm raging just past the window. Gendry removed his cloak and boots, both still coated in slick mud from the road, and pulled Arya towards him for a fuller kiss. She returned it but stilled after a moment, then drew away from him with a deep sigh.

"Before we start, you should know we can't actually do that."  
"Why?" It had been over a moon's turn since he last saw her, it was uncharacteristic that they had kept their clothing on this long as it was.

"Niiotha says I'm too far - anything exciting like that might make it come too soon." Even after eight months there was too much he didn't know about this process. He took a breath and nodded, then kissed her forehead lightly and finished undressing.

Their bed felt just as he remembered it.

Arya took off her leathers and put on a nightshirt, which was more than she usually wore, and curled up beside him, intertwining their legs and resting her head in the crook of his arm.

"I was thinking," he started.

"Not always the best start." He shot her a look but she didn't see it.

"I assume everyone is still referring to you as 'lady?'" She twisted up her mouth. It was all the answer he needed. "I don't know how I didn't think of this before. Do you know why we call Ser Brienne 'ser' and not 'lady?'"

"Did you really just figure out that she's a knight?" Her voice was judgmental but tinged with a hint of concern.

"I've referred to her as "Ser Brienne" since the Battle for Winterfell. If we hadn't been otherwise occupied we might have seen her knighting." The burning fire cast just enough light to highlight Arya's grin at his reference to how they had spent what the thought would be their final hours. "My point is that no one has called her 'lady' since."

"But I'm not a knight, so that doesn't help me."

"The Bringer of the Dawn isn't a knight - in what world does that make sense?" He craned his neck to look at her more fully.

"Knighting doesn't really matter in the North," she said as if she were thinking aloud. "Besides, knighting someone for the title makes it worthless." The Hound had grunted something similar once, though the thought was riddled with the word 'cunt.' Gendry suspected the bitter man had something to do with Arya's hesitation.

"If anyone deserves knighting I'm fairly certain it's the woman who saved the realm from the dead."

She sighed.

"I'm not saying yes. But I do think there would be worse things than adding a second woman knight to the world."

"Ser Brienne is willing to do it herself now that she's well enough to sail from Tarth." Arya raised her head from his arm with a look of skepticism.

"You already asked her?" Gendry had planned for both Arya's acceptance of his suggestion and her skepticism at his preparation.

"I asked if she'd be willing should you be interested." Her eyes scanned his face for any sign of a lie. He knew better than to be dishonest with her.

"You might be smarter than I give you credit for." He wanted to look unimpressed, but a grin quickly overtook his face.

"She asked that I remind you there are few higher honours than being knighted by the Lord Commander of the kingsguard." Well, maybe being knighted by the King, but that seemed less impressive when he was her younger brother.

"She didn't think it was stupid?" Gendry laughed and scoffed a bit. He wanted to make fun of her for thinking Ser Brienne of Tarth thought anything so official and duty-bound could be stupid, but laughing at her might get her to change her mind.

"She did not."

Arya turned so her face pressed against his ribs and considered it further.

"Just us three," she said softly.

"This is the bit you won't like." She wriggled out from under his arm to look at him disapprovingly. "We wed before two of your siblings, a friend, and Davos. We can't keep every important moment a secret from our people." She cringed at 'our people' and Gendry let her have her space for a moment.

"I don't like it."

"Do you like it less than being called 'Lady Baratheon' or 'Lady Arya' all the time?" The face she responded with was almost childlike. "One knighting ceremony and one feast, then it's done. You'll be 'Ser Arya' and never 'lady' ever again."

She propped herself on her right elbow, half-snarled hair falling down in a mess over her shoulders. "I don't want to be 'Ser Arya,' I just want to be Arya."

Gendry ran his thumb over her wrist lightly.

"I'm not sure that's a real option. I've been lord here for five years and I've not managed to just be 'Gendry.'"

It would take her until the morning to agree to his proposal. Thrice throughout the night she woke him to ask another question she already knew the answer to; by the time the sun rose she knew her answer.

The official ceremony was to take place two weeks after Arya had begrudgingly agreed to it. Gendry began preparations immediately. He wanted to forge a special blade for the ceremony, but they didn't have the time. Ser Brienne would arrive within the week, and he had to make sure the kitchens had both the staff and the means to prepare a feast large enough for hundreds of Stormlanders.

Luckily, Gendry had allotted eighty silver stags to fix the sept back when Arya first helped with his allocations - otherwise the ceremony would have taken place in a half-burnt, half-splintered imitation.

Smallfolk and lords alike spread the news that their lady would be knighted for her contribution during the Long Night. The Stormlands lacked any true cities, but it took only a few days for the streets to become as busy as most townships - dozens of people at all times awaiting something interesting before the knighting. Some showed up out of respect for their new leader, others out of curiosity, and most to see the woman who had claimed their lord after returning from the mysterious, savage shores of the West.

Ser Davos apologized that he would not be able to attend as the small council began in earnest, but Marya Seaworth arrived at Storm's End two days early to assist in any way she could. Mostly she spoke with Arya behind closed doors; Gendry assumed their conversations had more to do with her experience with parenting than with knighthood.

Despite her air of disinterest, Arya did not sleep the night before she was to be knighted. When her husband awoke and inquired, she assured him it was just their child keeping her awake, but he saw the way her lips twitched and her eyes glinted in the dawn light - she was excited. Ser Brienne assured them that it was alright for her to skip the more religious aspects of the ceremony as Arya did not follow the Seven, so she had no need to stand vigil before the Warrior, nor would she be anointed with the seven oils.

The ceremony was to take place just before dusk. The day flew by, a tangled web of petitions, feast preparations, and preemptively congratulatory letters from Jon and Sansa. He hadn't even had time to eat a real meal before Pylon was interrupting him to let him know it was nearly time to make his way to the repaired sept. Gendry attempted three different shirts - a woven wool tunic, Bran's gift, and his half-destroyed old leathers from before he had been made a lord - before deciding on a simple, grey leather doublet. Arya would appreciate the versatility, he was sure, but it seemed well-fitted enough to show he considered the occasion important.

A better lord might have ridden, but the structure stood less than half an hour's walk from the castle gates. His wife - he still got a jolt of surprising excitement whenever he thought of her as that - had already arrived, though he could not see her from the muddy crowd around the building.

Inside the sept nearly two hundred people were gathered, with many more cramming their heads through windows and doors. Children fussed atop their parents' laps and silk-clad lords gossiped about the occasion. Gendry reminded himself to think of his posture and walked in past the crowds to where Arya leaned against a sturdy table holding effigies of each of The Seven. Her shoulder relaxed slightly beneath his hand as she shifted her weight into him.

He hadn't been to the sept save for his earliest days of lordship, when he needed to win over the commoners and lords alike. It had been improved greatly despite the lightning. There were two levels, one large and open and above it walls of balconies filled with benches. Six of the seven sections faced a wooden platform that had long worn away its polish. The table Arya stood by was large and made of thick-cut redwood, covered with a runner of white silk beneath incense, statuettes, and seven-sided crystals; behind it stood a shelf that had been built into the seventh section and was lined with rows of half-melted candles. The windows were massive, towering things of stained glass, each depicting a face of the Seven. Though it was stunning, he felt no more dedicated to the Faith than he had before he entered.

"Are you ready?" Gendry asked Arya softly. She nodded and he ignored the disapproving murmurs when he kissed her.

"My lord," Ser Brienne interrupted a moment after they had separated. "We ought to get started." He nodded and stepped back to stand with the liege lords.

Arya looked to the crowd uncomfortably and walked to Brienne. The knight had recovered well, and seemed much herself despite the jagged pink scar jutting from the neckline of her armour. Still, the first few times he saw her his mind flashed the memory of what he had assumed had been her corpse lying face-down in a river of blood. It had been Ser Brienne who realized he had not perished from Yara's blade in the throne room, Brienne who tried to stop the bleeding while the maester emerged, Brienne who checked on him as he healed. She had been there before, too, sending helpful letters throughout his early days as lord and assuring her father's support.

"Lady Arya, Bringer of the Dawn, Princess of the Six Kingdoms and the North," It was a rough start. Arya bit back a sigh and looked to Brienne. "Please kneel." If her now massively swollen pregnancy made it difficult, she gave no indication.

Dusk had been the perfect time for the ceremony - the sun's low rays shone though the western stained glass windows at the perfect angle to cast a brilliant emerald hue over Brienne and a blue light over Arya's face and upper torso.

Ser Brienne drew Oathkeeper and placed the Valyrian steel blade upon Arya's shoulder. It seemed especially fitting that a part of her father's former sword that would usher her into knighthood.

"In the name of the Warrior, I charge you to be brave." She lifted the blade to her other shoulder. "In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just." Arya swallowed at that, and Gendry wondered if she was thinking of the former hand of the King who had come to ask him questions in Tobho Mott's shop. Lord Eddard Stark had seemed a good man. "In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the young and innocent." That would be no problem, that was what Arya liked best. "In the name of the Maid, I charge you to protect all women." She was already training a dozen young girls twice a week, so surely that would be an easy vow. "In the name of the Smith, I charge you to use your strength for others." Her lips subtly moved upwards for the first time in the ceremony - Gendry knew his did, too. "In the name of the Crone, I charge you to remain wise and investigative." Ser Brienne moved the swirled metal one last time. "In the name of the Stranger, I charge you to forever carry out these vows without the fear of death." He'd prefer she not take that one as seriously as the rest.

Arya raised her head to look to Brienne, the setting sun's orange light mixing with the blue stained glass to coat her in a filter the colour of the grey-green northern sea.

"Before your old gods and our new, rise Ser Arya Stark, a knight of the six kingdoms and the North." She did, and a buzz of whispers spread throughout the crowd. A small but sincere smile made its way onto her face. It would not leave until she fell fast asleep hours later.

Before she could sleep there was a feast to attend. Gendry had instructed Pylon to arrange the event so that lords were spread out among smallfolk; the Great Hall fit somewhere between one hundred and two hundred guests when the tables were well spaced - surely they could fit another hundred if people ate pressed close together like commoners. The liege lords hated it, but Gendry couldn't possibly care less - this was to celebrate Arya and Arya cared more for their commonpeople than for their highborns.

The kitchens had been preparing since he first sent the initial requests, and even that wasn't enough time. At his request, they'd make those wretched crab things Arya had gone half-mad for in Pebble and the same browned chicken and noodle dish with the Dornish peppers and salty cheese sauce she had loved at her welcoming feast when she'd first stopped by Storm's End. The rest of the food was irrelevant, but he was sure it would include a massive pigeon pie or maybe wild boar, those root vegetables that filled the cellars, and lots of bread.

The ale was already flowing heartily when they made their way into the castle. Although the a large table remained where the main one usually stood, Gendry was glad to see no one's choices seemed encumbered by his presence. Barefoot, mud-covered children ran amok, their parents already too in their cups to rein them in.

"My lord!" Shouted a gangly young man with the early start to a yellow beard. Gendry smiled at him. "And my l- knight? Ser Arya!" It was working already.

They made their way to the long engraved table against the back wall, the same decorated table where he had tried his damndest to keep from staring at her nearly a year earlier. That time had passed impossibly quickly, and each moment had been filled to the brim… they had reunited, given into their hopes with a kiss and then three perfect days alone in his chambers, he had still attempted to remedy his betrothal to House Dayne to help the King, somehow he'd avoided death when the Great Council was killed, they'd fled the Capital, had ridden north on the kingsroad and unknowingly created a child in the process, spent weeks in Winterfell, gone back to the Capital, lost Yuisaraq, returned to the North, married, managed to pry back the Stormlands despite untrusting lords, and now were not far from bringing their lifebloods' combination into the world. Gendry sat at the center of that table and dragged his chair to press against Arya's so they might still be touching. He made sure Marya, Pylon, Niiotha, and Palomai were the only highborns he allowed at the table, if you could count the Westerners amongst the nobles.

"M'lord, your castellan suggested I'm to sit here. I'm sure it's a misunderstanding." A slim woman with clear green eyes and straight blonde hair worn down avoided his gaze. The young woman from petitions, the one who had fallen for an ewerer.

"Marla," Gendry remembered aloud. "There is no misunderstanding. Please find a seat. Is your betrothed here as well?"

"My husband now, m'lord. He's somewhere in here." She gestured a thin hand to the growing crowd of people.

"Let's find him a place with us."

Another half a dozen commoners had been sent forward, but Gendry was disappointed to realize he didn't know them as specifically.

Marla sat by Niiotha, who was only one seat to Arya's left. Her husband found her before she took a seat, and drunkenly wrapped his arms around her to whisper something into her hair before realizing the table in front of them held their Lord Paramount. He apologized, but neither Arya nor Gendry would hear anything of it.

The other guests seated beside them included a cobbler, two masons, a tanner and his daughter, and a woman who wove carpets described with such detail that Arya assured her they would find her again to purchase a few for their chambers.

The unorthodox decision to feed the other tables first meant they waited nearly an hour to eat, and Gendry began to feel the ale earlier than usual. This was the appealing aspect of lordship, he realized, the chance to keep his people well fed and to hear about their lives. The rest could go elsewhere, but this was worth it.

The serving staff brought their food already dished out.

"Braavosi crab cakes?" Arya said as she looked at him like he'd handed her a new Valyrian steel sword. "Have I told you that I love you?"

"Only when I'm very lucky." He was definitely drunk.

She smiled and turned her attention to her plate. It turned out that no amount of hunger and craving would change the fact that their babe now took up most of the room in her torso, and she was only able to eat a few bites of each thing, though she did eat both her own crab cake and half of Marla's when the young woman sensibly announced she had no taste for the thing.

The evening passed in a blur. Random feasters often staggered up to the table to congratulate Arya on her knighthood, and a few challenged her to a duel once she had her full strength and speed back. Young children who had worn themselves out sprinting between the tables crumpled against any horizontal surface they could find to sleep. A few brave hounds had moved from the spilt food to eat directly from unfinished plates. They mostly ate crab.

"You don't need to wait for them all," Pylon said kindly to Arya after she stifled back a yawn for the third time in as many minutes. It was halfway to dawn by then.

Gendry nodded at her and thanked the cobbler, the only person beyond his castellan who remained at their table, for his company before they headed off to their chambers to sleep and wish they didn't have to keep from enjoying one another's bodies.

-

The morning eight days after the knighting, Arya complained of having had pulled something in her back. Gendry wasn't sure how that was possible when he, Niiotha, and the Maester had all been infuriating her with their insistence that she not strain herself.

"Maybe I ought to fetch Maester Forreal," he suggested. She shot him a glare and assured him it was nothing, she had just pulled it in her sleep.

A while later, she stopped mid-stride from where she was walking towards the window and closed her eyes.

"It's nothing," she said again. He got Niiotha anyways.

The tall woman lost her usual rough demeanor as soon as she realized it had begun.

"I thought there was supposed to be liquid."

"There isn't for everyone. Did you have any blood?" _Blood?_ Why would there be blood.

"A little," Arya responded. Why hadn't she told him? Was something wrong?

"It's started," she sighed. Gendry looked at Arya in surprise. "Come on." Niiotha led them a ways down the corridor to the room she had prepared for the event. A bed covered in layers of thick sheets stood by a window; some strange looking half-columns had been nailed into the floor; and there were tables of vials and strange metal, wooden, and stone instruments of every shape. "I won't need them all," she said when she saw his terror.

Arya climbed up onto the bed and Niiotha unceremoniously told her to change into a night shirt so she could have better access.

Gendry made himself useful by lighting the kindling box to ignite the fire and warm up the room. It was one of the coldest days in the history of the Stormlands, or at least Maester Forreal told him as much, and they could use any extra warmth. He was certainly sweating more than he ought to if it were unnaturally cold, but he supposed that was the nerves.

"Now what?" He asked as he planted a hand on Arya's shoulder once she had been inspected.

"Now we wait." That seemed wrong. Arya muttered something under her breath.

"Shouldn't I get the Maester?"

"Later," Niiotha shrugged. She poured a pitcher from the table into a massive cast iron cauldron and hung it over the small flames.

The flames slowly grew higher and Arya's grimaces, though still each still separated by the better part of an hour, grew more concerning. Occasionally her friend would make her lie down on the half-buried bed to check what she could see or to gently feel the child, but mostly she made a series of teas and then used the remaining water to boil the tools she had brought with her.

As was typical in the stormlands, the skies opened by early afternoon. Forreal must have been right, because the clouds spilled sleet and not rain. Niiotha kept the window open despite the splattering of ice that melted stone as soon as it hit the stone floor.

Another hour or two passed and a serving boy whose name escaped Gendry asked if he'd like supper.

"No -" he started before Arya and Niiotha both interrupted him.

"Stew," the Western woman said.

"Bread and cheese, maybe an apple?"

"Stew," Niiotha said again with a glance towards her friend.

Three trays came up shortly after - one with a large iron bowl of still-simmering stew; one with a plate piled high with steaming bread, slabs of cheese, and two apples; and one with pitchers of wine, ale, and water. Gendry grabbed the wine and poured a shaky chalice for himself.

"How much longer?" Arya asked through gritted teeth as she squeezed the apple slice in her hand so hard that the juice dripped down her fingers and onto the floor.

Niiotha beckoned her back to the bed and checked again.

"Still a while. Here." She spooned out some of the stew into a wooden bowl from her table and handed it to Arya. Her eyes narrowed but she accepted it and pulled the gown down before leaning against the wall next to the window. When she'd finished eating Gendry was somehow still chewing the same heel of bread he'd taken almost an hour earlier.

When the moon rose, whatever was happening inside of her had gotten bad enough to make her audibly groan and destroy a piece of cheese with her sudden clenched fist.

"Can I… can I go for a walk?" She asked softly as she regained her composure.

"Of course," Niiotha replied kindly at the same time that Gendry blurted 'No' too loudly.

"Arya, it's dark out and the grounds are covered in ice."

Dark eyes flashed as Niiotha stepped between them. "She's of the North, she'll be fine." His wife made a face from beyond her shoulder and walked to the door without even bothering with a cloak.

"You're making it worse," the supposed healer said after Arya had left the room. She sighed and shook her head before looking at him again. "They don't just shoot out when they're ready. I'll bring her back when she needs to be here. And I'll even bring your maester."

Gendry felt his top lip pull back into an awkward face of confusion and nodded even though he was still utterly without understanding.

It was too dark to see them from the window, so Gendry resorted to pacing around the room while he waited for their return. _'I'll bring her back when she needs to be here.'_ What did that even mean? An hour? Half? Three?

When he could take no more, he wandered back to his solar to write of the news to Davos, Jon, and Sansa. A fourth scroll began for the King, but it struck him how foolish he would seem telling a man who knew all that his sister was giving birth, especially when the raven would arrive after their child.

Gendry could not bring the messages to Forreal lest he he would involve himself in the birth too early - something Niiotha had expressly forbidden when she sat him down to tell him how things would happen the day after his return from the Capital. Instead, he stuffed them into the side pocked sewn onto his trousers and hurried back to the birthing room. It was still empty.

Another hour went by and he began to worry. What if something had happened? What if she had slipped in the ice and broken something? What if the child had decided it needed to be born right then and there? What if something had happened to Niiotha and now Arya was alone trying to do all of this by herself?

He had just managed to convince himself that something was very wrong and turned towards the door when they entered again. Arya avoided his gaze as Niiotha brought her over to the bed.

"I'm getting your precious Maester." Her nearly black eyes met Gendry's with an unusual softness. "Don't make things any worse." He understood this time - whether she admitted it or not, Arya was scared. He had to pretend he wasn't ten times more afraid than she was.

"Do you want any food?" His wife scowled at the absurdity of the question. Good, thinking he was an idiot was better than fear.

He walked over to her with some watered wine in the cup clasped in his hand but she shook her head and pushed it away.

"We're never -" She stopped speaking to cry out alarmingly loudly. After a moment, she took a few deep breaths and picked right back up where she started, "Never doing this again. No more."

"The first one is always the worst," Niiotha said as she walked back into the room, Maester Forreal close behind.

"Mother have mercy! Why did you let her get this far without calling me?" He said after guiding Arya onto her back so he could check her progress.

"I wouldn't have called you at all if it were up to me," Niiotha's brow quirked as if to challenge the old man.

"Get some pillows," the maester instructed. Gendry started to do as he was told, but a brown hand stopped him with a surprisingly firm grip.

"No. She's not staying in the bed." Niiotha and the maester argued back and forth. Apparently Arya was to use the posts nailed into the ground and squat. She said something about a hip and angles, but it made no sense to Gendry. The concept seemed undignified, but so did lying in a bed of blood like the women in stories.

"My lord, you cannot allow this," Forreal urged. Arya grunted something he couldn't quite understand.

"What do you want to do?" He asked her, his hand smoothing back some of the hair that had gotten stuck to the sweat on her forehead.

She closed her eyes and looked to the arguing pair. "How many times have you done this?"

"I've been guiding babies into the world since before I first bled and helping since I could walk. Only twice has a mother died in my care." Twice was too many times. It would be Forreal.

The Maester stood oddly still as he gathered his words. "I may not have done this exactly in practice, but I assure you the Citadel teaches of childbirth in every possible detail."

Arya looked at them skeptically and then suddenly became distracted. She grabbed Gendry's hand from where it rested on her arm and squeezed it with all her might. When they were children on the kingsroad, she once mentioned how her Septa used to tell her she had the hands of a blacksmith. She really believed it, too - thought her highborn hands were suddenly that of a tradesman because she had a few callouses. 'Those soft little things?' he had laughed from across the fire. They were bigger and rougher than they had been then, but they were still so soft and small even as they gripped his with more force than he knew was possible for someone her size.

Niiotha crossed the room and looked at Arya again.

"Not long now," she said with a reassuring pat on the knee. "Come on, sit up."

Maester Forreal started to protest, but Niiotha glared at him so intensely that he stopped himself mid-sentence and stuck his hands within his sleeves in resignation.

It was over before he realized what was happening. A few minutes of Niiotha soothingly telling Arya things in a language Gendry didn't recognize, vocal disapproval by Forreal, and some terrible sounding sobs and it was done. Arya rolled her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes when he approached. Niiotha stuck one of those strange metal things she had boiled into the slime-covered babe's nose, cut the throbbing tissue from the child's stomach, then dunked the body into a bowl of water. The infant began to scream - a good thing, she assured them - and Niiotha had to clap in his face to get Gendry to move from staring at them and help bring Arya to the bed.

A daughter.

A tiny girl with wisps of black hair and eyes the shade of a raincloud - the exact same colour Arya had told him was her favourite in the lower cabinet after delivering gifts from the West. He hoped they stayed that hue forever, though Niiotha assured him most babies were born with those same eye, and all eventually chose one shade rather than existing as a mixture of their own.

Arya caught her breath and held the child to her breast, her face a perfect image of pure exhaustion, shock, and joy. He shifted into the bed next to her and wrapped his arm around her while his left hand reached out and stroked the head of their daughter softer than he may have touched cracked glass. It was done - Arya was fine and they had added a third member to the family she had offered him so long ago.

.

.

.

**Arya**

Of all his children, Arya's father had only missed the birth of one of her siblings. Robb had been made and born amidst Robert's Rebellion, and and so it was only natural that the new Warden of the North missed the birth of his first trueborn son. It was only the two of them, her and Robb, who had not earned his surprise and joy at the sight of another child. Born during Greyjoy's Rebellion, he was off in the Iron Islands while his wife laboured and cried to get her already difficult child from her womb. Her Lady Mother had told her the tale endless times - the wolves of the North howled louder that night than she had ever heard them before. _"Come to take the newest pup back to their pack,"_ Old Nan had warned her. Years later the old woman would maintain that Arya was meant for the wolves. _"Wolfgirl,"_ she had called when she overheard Septa Mordane chastising her for whatever she had done wrong at the time. "_Careful or they'll tear through the walls and bring you back to their pack." _

It all seemed foolish at the time.

Now, with her tiny daughter asleep in her arms and Gendry wide-eyed beside her, one hand on their child's black-shrouded scalp and one wrapped around her shoulders, it made sense. This was her pack - a pack of flesh and blood she created herself through love and passion, blood and sweat, trust and fear.

The fears she had felt before were but a distant memory; how could she ever feel stir-crazy and restless with this little thing depending on her? The baby's tiny pink lips separated as she slept and Arya's whole heart seemed to burst from the action. How could anyone feel so much love for something so new?

All those years ago, Nymeria's rejection in the Riverlands had felt unfair - she was supposed to be her pack, but instead abandoned her for a few dozen common wolves like it was nothing. Now it was understandable. Arya wouldn't leave these two for anything or anyone; the love in her heart was too fierce. Gendry would be stuck with her until their final breaths, this babe would be forever burdened with a mother who would grab her sword at the slightest sign of unease. Nothing had ever been more clear - they were her pack and she would forever do whatever it took to ensure the pack survived.


	14. Chapter 14 - Epilogue

_Epilogue_

**Elenei**

A distant rumble of thunder sounded somewhere over the eastern hills. Elenei's brother groaned at the thought of rain, but her father cracked a sure grin.

"The Storm Gods are following us to keep you safe," he said before looking back to the road. He didn't believe in the Storm Gods, at least he didn't seem to, but she appreciated the reference either way.

Father was descended from the Storm Gods, or so everyone in the Stormlands claimed. It was said they were to thank for the black hair, blue eyes, and impossible strength he had passed onto his children. Elenei herself had been named after a Storm Goddess - the daughter of sea and wind who sacrificed everything for a mortal man who would become the first Storm King. Maester Forreal told her once that it was not the Baratheons who were descended from Elenei, but rather house Durrandon. She kept that information to herself.

"Why couldn't they stay at the stupid castle?" Even at ten, her younger sister managed to find a fault in everything.

"Berena," Father warned, "Ancestors on both sides of your family built that castle. You owe them some respect." He adjusted his seat on his horse and shoved a strand of hair behind his ear. Some of the front parts had started to streak with grey in the past few years, but they highlighted his angular face in a way that made him look younger.

"If they wanted my respect, they should have put windows where they knew the rooms would go. What idiot builds a castle without windows on half of it?" She scowled out at the path and shook her head hard enough to send her black hair swaying in its half-destroyed braid.

Despite what he had just said, their father laughed to himself rather than chastise her again.

Berena was his favourite, though he would never admit it even to himself.

Elenei hadn't understood it at first, but then Uncle Bran had shown her a few looks into the past in her lessons last year. She may have inherited the Baratheon colouring, but her sister was practically a replica of their mother in attitude and face. A few glimpses of that scowling youth rolling her eyes at a grumpy smith and Elenei instantly knew why her father had a soft spot for his second-born daughter - she was exactly as their mother had been when they first met.

"How much longer?" Asked their youngest brother from where he sat between Father's arms on a chestnut horse.

"Should be three days, but it could be a week if you keep trying to catch rabbits." Little Ned had nearly jumped from the horse thrice today alone.

"Then El leaves us?"

"That's not my name," she quipped from two horses over. Names had meaning and there was no reason to err from them. Ned had given everything a shorter name when he was first learning to speak, but only Berena and Elenei were stuck with his nicknames once he learned to call the rest by their proper names. "And I'm not leaving you, I'm just going away for a little bit."

"How come _I_ can't go to the West?" Berena asked loudly.

"You were born there," Father said, his voice tinged with disbelief.

"That doesn't count, I don't remember it." She blew an escaped strand of hair off of her forehead.

Berena and their closer brother chattered on endlessly about the semantics of whether or not she could consider herself as having had been to the West. Mother had given birth to her and brought her with her everywhere she went for the last half year of the trip, while Elenei stayed in the North with her aunt, the Queen. It was supposed to be her realm to rule one day, though the Three Eyed Raven hinted that her fate remained further South. When they returned to Westeros with a second daughter, her parents immediately rode north to Winterfell, and then to see Uncle Jon and his family north of the Wall. She had only been three then, too young to remember much beyond the first time she held her sister or the cold of the Skirling Pass.

"When will we see Mother?" Asked Ned.

"When we get to Feastfires."

"But I want to see her now."

Father sighed and kissed the crest of Ned's dishevelled brown hair.

"We all do, but we've got to get there first." Their mother had been gone for over two months now, first for the four week journey it took to get to the western shore from Storm's End and then a month preparing the ship for Elenei's departure. She had originally planned to go with her daughter, but life or the gods or perhaps just her subconscious intervened with other plans.

"She hasn't written all week," Berena complained. Their mother had sent a few ravens throughout the journey, usually two per week - generally one was composed of whatever she felt like writing and the other was her response to their earlier scrolls. None had found them in six days.

"She doesn't respond to my ravens at all," Father shrugged.

Her brother paused his horse and looked back at the Lord of the Stormlands. He was tall enough now that his feet hit the stirrup steels.

"I thought a lady always had to respond to her husband," he considered aloud. _Where in the Six Kingdoms did he hear that?_ Elenei wondered as she felt her brows raise.

Father's laugh was half concerned and half humoured. "Who told you that?"

"Mother isn't a lady," hissed Berena. "And she says girls can do whatever boys do. They don't have to do anything." Their father smiled at her confidence.

"Aunt Sansa. She told them technically, but I heard it too." He gestured towards his sisters with his chin.

Their aunt was forever trying to teach them proper manners; she was convinced they were doomed in greater society with their mother's apathy for protocol. Elenei listened when she could and obeyed what she agreed with, but Berena was a lost hope entirely. Perhaps Maris, their youngest sister, would take the lessons to heart one day. Aunt Sansa was everything women were expected to be - tall, beautiful, regal, and always well received. She was smart, too, but never overplayed her hand. Sometimes Elenei wondered how she was Mother's sister at all.

Father shook his head before responding, "You'd better strike that from your mind. Berena's right, your mother doesn't have to do anything - especially where I'm involved - and you'd best not let her know you're taking your understanding of women from Sansa."

"Will Niiotha be there?" Asked Berena hopefully, apparently entirely over the conversation. She had spent the first few years of her life as a shadow to the Western woman.

"I'd hope your mother would be a higher priority," muttered Father.

Berena complained of Niiotha's recent absence while away in the Summer Isles, where she had spent a few months with a man who had come to Storm's End twice, the father of her daughter, after coming back from the precursory sail. Father did not respond.

"And Davos too?"

"But Davos is here!" Shouted Ned as he looked at their brother of the same name. He needed an afternoon's sleep and mayhap another meal.

"Not our Davos, Ser Davos," Berena corrected haughtily as though Ned weren't only four.

"Aye, he'll be there too." Father needed a nap more than Ned did.

A louder roll of thunder interrupted the conversation.

The rain seemed to be approaching from all sides. Dark clouds floated in from the western skies and the thunder grew stronger behind them.

It was beautiful. The sun had begun to set before them, painting the grey cloud shades of lilac and lavender - her favourite colour. To their right, the storm had made its way north and flashed to illuminate the layers of caliginous sky.

A few spits of rain hit Elenei's head and exposed arms.

"Now it's raining," complained her brother.

"It's been thundering for hours, what did you expect?" Berena asked with a sneer.

Father rode up between their horses and silenced them both with a disapproving look.

"We'll make camp in a league or two," he said when he returned to his former position in the back of their party.

"Make camp? I thought we were nobles. Aren't nobles supposed to stay at castles and inns?" Davos preferred comfort over grit, much to the frustration of both their parents.

"Just for that your cot goes outside of the tent." Father never had any patience for softness. He had been born a poor bastard in the worst part of KIng's Landing, then became a smith, later a teenaged outlaw with Mother, returned to being a smith again, and somehow was a lord in the end. If Elenei hadn't seen it for herself, she would never believe his stories. "My own son speaking like a highborn," he muttered to himself loud enough for them all to hear.

"But we _are_ highborn," Davos whined.

"Don't remind me."

They rode for another hour, until the drizzle grew thicker and began to fall in heavy sheets of rain. When the rain became too much, they made camp beneath two massive beech trees a few minutes' walk from the road. Berena dismounted first and ran off to below the hill, presumably to find some mud puddle to throw herself into.

Elenei and Davos helped their father put up the tent and unwrapped the last of the food they had gotten at Deep Den two days prior - smoked trout, salted butter, pickled radishes, and mostly-stale bread.

"Not 'til you train," he said to them with a look of false sternness when he saw them remove the bundles from their saddlebags.

"But it's raining," Davos complained.

"If your mother finds out I let you skip practices the past three days, she'll have my head. Just an hour's worth."

Her brother pouted dramatically but did as he was told. Elenei followed suit, going first to find her sister. Sure enough, she was covered in mud.

"How did you get so filthy?" A shrug was her only response. "Well, come back. Father wants us to train before supper." Berena grinned at the prospect of practicing her swordplay and sprinted up the hill, coating her sister's cropped riding trousers in droplets of black mud with her first steps.

When she arrived outside of the tent, her father was doing his best to help Davos with his practice, though he was no swordsman either.

"You can't just swing from your shoulders, it leaves you vulnerable." Her brother grunted and swung the exact same way. "Better," Father said. He probably truly believed it was.

Elenei picked up the hefty axe they had brought to split wood from the saddlebags and turned it in her palms. Heavy weapons were far more fun than small things, but her mother wanted her practicing water dancing or staffs more than axes and hammers. If Father noticed she wasn't doing as she was supposed to, he said nothing.

Berena and Davos swung at each other with sticks, each twisting up their faces as they swung with all their might. Her sister ought to have been rehearsing the Braavosi method, but she abandoned it after three smooth twirls.

"Yay Rena!" Ned shouted as he clapped from their father's shoulders when Berena knocked Davos down into the mud.

"Now I'm as dirty as you are," their brother complained before slipping back down in an attempt to stand.

Elenei returned to the axe, swinging it 'round her head and practicing side swipes in the downpour until her shoulders and arms burned. Soon Father called them back to the tent after what could not possibly have really been an hour.

They swapped out their muddy, wet clothes for dryer pieces and sat for supper. Traveling on the road meant they skipped the luxuries of a tavern or castle - simple cots when it rained or blankets upon the ground when it was dry rather than straw or feather mattresses, cold food, and no plates or forks. Their hands did just fine to get the meat atop the bread and into their mouths under the cover of the canvas.

Father was too soft to make Davos sleep in the pouring rain, so they pushed the cots closer together to fit all five of them within the tight shelter.

Heavy winds and rhythmic thumps of water lulled Elenei to sleep with a quickness she hadn't expected.

"I miss Mother," Ned said quietly in the dark to no one.

"I do too," Father told him even softer. The last thing she heard before drifting asleep was him pulling her youngest brother more fully onto his cot.

She did not wake until the morning.

-

Two days later, they were on the final leg of the journey to Feastfires.

The air was hot. This was not the humid heat of the Stormlands, where rainwater rose up from the ground to settle around your skin like a thick haze, nor the foul-smelling heat of the Capital. The Westerlands had a more pleasant, dry heat that stemmed from the vivid grasses and slipped up over rocks and air to whisk past a cheek on the caressing breeze.

Massive emerald hills rolled throughout the region. It was late Spring, and the decade of Winter rains had left stunning patches of purple, white, and yellow - wildflowers that blanketed the mounds so thickly that there may as well not have been any grass at all. A bland slice of tawny road tapered around a hill to the west, and a peek of brilliant blue was beginning to show beyond the lower hills. The sea.

They rode until the path ended, then continued due West until the salty breeze of the ocean blew strong and true. Elenei breathed the scent in deeply - it was warmer and stronger than the sea of Storm's End, though less sharp than that of White Harbor. _What might the seas in the West smell of?_ She asked herself.

After another hour or so, when the sun had just begun to lower from its hot, high zenith, a speck of red appeared. They headed closer until the speck grew into the shape of a castle of some sort. Feastfires, she figured. Lord Prester had been kind enough to allow them the use of his castle while he ventured to visit his wife's family in the cooler grounds of Seagard. The red sandstone castle rose tall and stretched wide, though it was not as high as Storm's End or as expansive as Winterfell. Excitement bubbled up in Elenei's stomach more intensely with each step of her horse.

The entryway was marked by two massive cast iron gates with thin bars of bronze the width of a spear. House Prester's sigil, a massive ox, stood proud in red steel engraved over a large circular plate of the same material as the rods. Father took one look at the gate and burst out into deep, loud laughter.

Mother waited for them when they entered, though they had sent no raven since leaving Deep Den and no scouts had been visible over the winding hills. Little Eddard nearly leapt from his horse before they had even come to a full stop; he may have been successful if their father hadn't grabbed him by the collar with a sigh.

"Wait for me to get off first, Ned," he said with annoyance. "I'lll not have you ride the whole way here fine and then snap your neck the second we get past the gates." Elenei bit back a smirk and drew up her reins to stop Symeon, her favourite horse. Their father dismounted at the same time as Berena and Davos, then hoisted Ned by the arms to lower him to the ground. His feet hadn't even touched the earth before he was sprinting to their mother. She lifted him up in a tight hug, then mussed his hair after letting him back down; his arms stayed wrapped around her legs as she briefly hugged Berena, Davos, and Elenei with a warm smile.

Niiotha waited for them as well, and greeted Elenei with a friendly grin. "That's a nice way to wear your hair," she said while nodding to Elenei's long braid. She had only done it out of boredom during the early hours of their ride, but the words were appreciated nonetheless. Berena ran to the woman and hugged her tightly.

Behind them, Elenei heard Mother greet her father with a lilting 'Hello.'

"Ew," her sister said as she looked away from their parents kissing.

They were embarrassing - all the empty-headed girls in the Stormlands "oohed" and "aahed" when they were together, especially in the common instance that one of them rested a hand on the other's or kept a light touch to a back or leg. It was Father's fault, really. He was too affectionate for a lord. Elenei could still feel humiliation in her gut when she remembered how the young lords had snickered when he kissed her forehead before leaving her to train with the master of arms two moonturns prior.

Their lord father turned to Berena and raised his brows slightly. "When you love someone, you make sure they know it." He said before kissing his wife again. "And I happen to love your mother very much." Mother smiled lightly with her hand placed over where her husband's rested on the side of her face and and looked at him with a look Elenei couldn't quite translate.

"It's just... can't you love her in private?" Davos asked. Their father paled and their mother snickered - at nine he was too young to realize the other meanings of his words.

"This is why there are five of us," Elenei scoffed to Niiotha.

"Best stop complaining or we'll make it six," Mother shot back. Their father snapped his head to her in alarm but she shook her head to assure him it was in jest.

"Where is Maris?" Berena only found her patience when it came to her infant sister.

"She's asleep. As soon as she wakes and feeds I'll bring her to you."

"What about Ser Davos?" Asked the man's namesake.

"He's readying the ship with Devan." Elenei was still a little sad to know the Onion Knight would not be guiding their journey, but sending his son instead. Ser Davos was nearing seventy - it was fair for him to feel less than thrilled the prospect of the trip. Still, he was the closest thing she had to a grandfather and she had been looking forward to sailing with him for years.

"Do you want to see it?" Niiotha asked them.

"Yes!" Berena shouted before the rest responded.

Her mother looked less than pleased. "No visiting the ship until you've trained."

"But Father made us train yesterday before dinner," Davos complained. She smiled at her husband and quirked a brown brow in approval. Elenei realized her mother likely hadn't expected Father to keep up with their routines. In truth he wasn't very insistent, he never was, and they had trained as he asked throughout the trip more out of boredom than any need to follow his instruction.

"Elenei didn't practice as she was supposed to," Berena tattled. Elenei had half a mind to slap her for it, but that would just make more issues.

"You know better than to speak poorly of your sister. You two are closest in age, you've got to learn to keep her secrets." Father's lips pressed into a straight line of frustration after he spoke. Her sister crossed her arms and pouted, the black hair that had escaped its binds covering her eyes.

"Off to the training yard with you lot," Mother sighed. "Turn right at the stables. Your father and I will bring your things up." She eyed Elenei with something that looked like unsure sadness as she took her satchel and saddlebags, but gave her a small smile.

"Ned, Kahnasiio will be happy to see you," Niiotha said of her daughter as she took the youngest boy by the hand so they could play wherever she waited.

The training yards of Feastfires were small and simple compared to those of Storm's End. A few wooden swords and staffs lined the racks, but they lacked the complexity of their counterparts back home. Their mother always ensured that their training yard was stocked with every variety of weapon, even rare, fascinating ones from the Eastern and Western continents, and their father smithed them blunt blades to use rather than wood. He made them live steel, too, a whole storeroom's worth, but insisted they only be used when they had reached a certain proficiency with the dulled ones first.

Elenei found the best sword she could, a splintered excuse of a thing that was unbalanced in her hand, and practiced water dancing like her mother wanted. She longed for a heavier axe or hammer instead.

After a few rounds against Davos and some local boys, the sun made its way to its resting place beyond the sea at the horizon and coated blue in glorious splashes of orange, red, and pink.

They stopped for a drink of water and wiped the pouring sweat from their faces and necks with a damp cloth. Her mother and Niiotha approached, chatting quietly about something the children couldn't quite hear.

"Who's ready to see the ship?" Niiotha asked them with a grin. Berena tossed her wooden sword to the dirt and ran over.

"Elenei, a word?" Mother's voice was soft.

She nodded and put back the sword before they walked.

Arya Stark was a loving woman, but her love could be tough and at times was difficult to see. There were occasional instances when Elenei wondered if it existed at all, especially when she got into trouble, but in her heart she knew that was unfair.

A lord had tried to tell her Mother was incapable of care a few years prior, lauding her with tales of how she had been forced into an unloving marriage to the Lord of the Stormlands when Elenei was conceived. She believed him at first, until her knight mother learned of it and became enraged. It had taken Father physically restraining her to stop her from finding and killing Lord Rogers that instant.

"There was no truth in his words," she said that night when seeing her eldest child to bed. "I know your father and I seem to love differently, but I love him just as much as he loves me. And you are a beautiful product of that love. It's true that I never planned to marry him until you came about, but I'm glad I did. And I certainly wasn't dragged here by motherhood."

Elenei's lord father considered stripping the man of his titles for the disrespect, though he refused to let his wife or her blades and poisons pay him a visit. It mattered not in the end, for only two days after he had spat at the heir to the North he was found near his holdfast ripped to shreds. Wolves, those who had seen the aftermath reported. Elenei found it fitting - they had been sent by the old gods for his disrespect.

Later she would come to see the way Mother showed her love for her father - the long glances, how quickly and fiercely she defended him whenever some lord or even one of their children unfairly chastised him, her right hand on his left at meals, the way they always shared a room even when propriety demanded they sleep separately.

Mother loved her, too. She may have demanded frequent weapons lessons or practice and insisted that Elenei learn the maps histories of the North, but she laughed and smiled and protected her children with each breath. Elenei had flowered at twelve, but there was never any talk of betrothal. When cousin Edmyn Tully, the son of a brother of her grandmother who had been slain in the start of Bronn's Uprising, married just before her Mother sailed her trial journey, she made it clear there would not be. His wife had been around Elenei's age, and the court was abuzz with whispers of when she might marry and whom. Arya Stark would hear none of it. She caused a small scene in her sharp-tongued response to shutter the mouths of those gossiping, but none would ask for her daughter's hand without knowing they would need to get through a wolf's fangs. Surely that was love, strange and violent as it may have seemed.

Now her mother walked beside her as they entered a grove that Elenei assumed was Feastfires' godswood.

Mother was a slight woman, shorter than most and always thin despite her speed and strength. Her brown hair was kept cropped along her shoulders, far less long than the other women of the Stormlands, and she always had at least two weapons on her belt at any given time. Today she wore three. Her face was smoother than Father's, with a few lines on her forehead and beneath her eyes, but otherwise unmarred.

The Stormlands had grown to love the woman who served as their lady in all but title, though there was a certain fear beneath that love.

Elenei had heard the stories - it was said she had killed an immortal ice being, the Night King, with a dagger once sent to slit Uncle Bran's throat. That one was true, Father made the singers of the court learn a Northern song about it to sing at feasts, even though Mother always found a reason to leave the room when it began. Other rumours were hard to place - had she really seen through the eyes of her direwolf? Elenei had heard of Nymeria, she had even seen the great beast when she was so small she did not yet reach the thing's shoulders, but the tales of her mother warging into the wolf to rip out the throats of men seemed far-fetched. And then there were the whispers she knew better than to believe - claims her mother lurked in the shadows and changed faces as easily as Elenei changed dresses. That one was too absurd to be true.

"I'm sorry I'm not going with you."

"It's alright, Maris is too little."

A year prior, her knight mother had gone off to do a precursory sail and verify that the shores of the West were still safe enough for their trip; she left before realizing she was pregnant. The youngest of their siblings was born at sea just one month before she returned to Storm's End. Not even a year had passed since then.

Her parents fought more loudly than any other time she could remember when she returned with a babe in her arms and without so much as a letter to preemptively warn Father. Elenei had spent the night with her ear to their door to catch their words. On the third night of eavesdropping, it became all too clear that their fighting was over and she wished very dearly that she hadn't gone to check what they had to say.

"Aye, but I would just take her with us if your father weren't so opposed." So she _did_ care what Father thought… "Still, it will be good for you to be away from us for a little while." Elenei didn't want to be away from her family, not really. She knew this trip was important - she would be one of fewer than a dozen people in Westeros who ever crossed the Sunset Sea. Arya Stark and Gendry Baratheon likely had the most well-traveled children in the realm. They spent months in Winterfell with their aunt, the Queen in the North; weeks north of the Wall with Uncle Jon; and even sometimes accompanied Mother to the Free Cities when she went for quick trips at the King's behest. Elenei herself had traveled farther in visions with her Uncle, but she wasn't sure that counted. Now she was going to the West and likely wouldn't be back for a year, maybe longer... some part of that was frightening.

Her mother stopped by a grove of trees and looked at her with concern.

"How are you feeling about this?"

"Good. Niiotha says my grasp on the languages is getting better, and I've memorized all the maps."

"I didn't ask if you've prepared, Elenei. I asked how you feel."

"I feel like I've prepared." Her mother laughed softly and unclasped her belt to remove Needle from its bridge.

"There's a reason I've been so adamant about your water dancing." A rare irritation began to heat in Elenei's blood. Water dancing was stupid; it was a method made for those who lacked strength, and she was anything but weak. "Why haven't you wanted to train?" The question was kind, but it incensed her nonetheless.

"Water dancing is for people who require speed in place of power," she muttered. She wasn't little like her mother, she was powerful enough to wield a man's broadsword or maybe even to try a warhammer like her father and his father before him.

Mother looked at her with curious eyes.

"You think so? Would you not want both?" Elenei bit her tongue to stop from answering with something rude. Mother sighed and turned her face to look into her eyes.

"So often I wonder if you ought to have been a Baratheon," she said quietly. She probably should have. Of the five of them, only Davos was a proper fit for his house. Davos lived and breathed like a Northerner - he never got cold, he hated the heat, and even at nine he was as stern as an old man. The rest of them were a blend. Berena was a Baratheon in temper but too much like her mother to not be a Stark; Ned was always happy and kind, which didn't seem accurate for either name, and it was too soon to know about Maris. Elenei herself didn't seem to fit anywhere… she had her father's strength and size and her mother's shrewdness, but also a mostly even temper, this conversation not withstanding. Her Uncle Bran was training her in the ways of the Three Eyed Raven and claimed she had some great gift, though she had never seen the future that she knew of. Mayhap that was why she was so different.

"I want you to have this." Mother's voice pulled her from her thoughts. She extended an arm to hand her her beloved sword.

"I can't take this." Her mother _loved_ Needle - she always wore it on her hip no matter how absurd it looked, even when she had been heavily pregnant with Ned. Elenei sat back on a boulder and looked at her mother.

"Of course you can. It's kept me safe for long enough; it's time it protects you. I know you're a bit too big for it, but the sword matters more than the size of the hand." It was true that the blade was too small for her, she was already nearly a head taller than her mother and it was ill-sized even for her. "And if you still don't like water dancing when you come back, we'll give it to Berena."

Elenei chewed her cheek at the thought of what would happen if she didn't bring Needle back at all "That's the most precious thing to you, I can't bring it across the sea… What if I lose it or break it or-"

Her mother crouched down to where she sat on the rock and placed a hand on her shoulder. As soon as the concern in her eyes resonated, Elenei was felt shame burn at her words.

"My sweet, sweet child," her knight mother began, "Have I truly erred so that you think I care more for a sword than my own flesh and blood?" The fluttering leaves drew Elenei's eyes to the flashes of silvery undersides. "Look at me." Her voice was softer than usual, thick with concern and regret. When she turned to face her, grey eyes bore into her almost as deeply as Uncle Bran's. "You and your sisters and brothers are what I love most. Nothing could ever compare. Then it's your father, then Uncle Jon and Aunt Sansa and Bran, then -"

"I don't think you're supposed to order them," Elenei mumbled.

"Well I did, and it's true. Needle only means so much to me because it was all I had to connect me to family when I was alone - it was Winterfell and those who were ripped away from me when I thought I'd never get them back. But it's only a piece of metal; I have reminders of my wonderful family everywhere now." She squeezed her shoulder lightly and pulled her into an embrace. Elenei swallowed hard and nodded against her mother's hair.

"Let's get back to the holdfast - there's a feast awaiting."

The feast was indeed waiting for them, though Elenei ran off for a quick bath before joining the rest of her family.

The great hall was smaller than that of Storm's End or Winterfell. It held likely a quarter thousand men when at its full capacity; the stone walls were cavernous in the room's emptiness that night. The main table was roughly the same size as theirs was back home, though made of a feebler wood than their sturdy dark oak. Red table runners embellished with golden thread skimmed its length and down to the floors.

Her family waited for her. There weren't many people in Feastfires with the Presters gone, so the table was mostly her own blood, along with those who might as well have been - Niiotha and Davos. A few serving staff sat with them as well.

The children were given iced milk sweetened with honey and cloves, and the adults drank wine and ale. Elenei and Berena were old enough for a glass of wine each. Her mother was still feeding her youngest child - much to the shock and disapproval of every other noble family, all of whom employed a wet nurse - and kept mainly to watered wine or diluted mead at the suggestion of Maester Forreal.

The kitchens, though manned with fewer people than usual, had prepared her favourite foods in honour of her departure. Plates of roast chicken crusted with herbs, garlic, and hot peppers; wheels of cheese heated and scraped over thick-crusted bread smeared with a paste of tomatoes and nettle; fingerling potatoes cooked crisped and golden; and some sort of baked fish she could never remember the name for. At her parents' request, they brought out desserts at the same time as the main food so that the staff might sit and eat. Elenei's favorite - rice soaked overnight in milk, honey, and spices - was among them.

Kahnasiio, Niiotha's daughter, sat with them. Elenei wasn't entirely thrilled to know a three year old would accompany them on a ship for fourteen weeks, but it made sense that she would bring her with to see family in the West. The child's father was the handsome man from the Summer Isles whom Niiotha had disappeared with for a few weeks a year or two before she became pregnant. Of all her suitors, he was the least surprising choice to father a child, though no one had seen him in years and no one but Mother knew the two were still in contact.

The toddler was bright eyed and tall for her age. Her hair sprang out in thick, tight ringlets that pointed in every direction when not oiled and braided or brushed back. She and Ned were of a similar age, and ran off to play together as soon as they had finished eating.

Halfway through the meal, Mother left to feed Maris and put Ned to sleep. Berena complained that the cheese was better at home, although she still managed to eat enough for three or four grown men. Father watched with a wide smile as Ser Davos told stories of his adventures at sea. Every time it seemed he had told them everything, he had another tale of narrow escape.

Her knight mother joined them after nearly an hour had gone by. When she returned, Father said something softly in her ear and kissed her cheek like they weren't all seated there. Berena and Davos exchanged a look of disgust.

He filled a glass with the watered wine and inspected it before passing it to her. Like most of the chalices at the table, it was engraved with an ox. "All the Western holdfasts you could write to and you choose the one with a bull on everything." Elenei cringed and looked away from the gross way they stared at one another. She knew her father had once used the symbol as a sigil of his own after he had earned the name for his stubbornness, but she didn't need to see her parents reminiscing over it like this.

"Is _that_ their sigil? I hadn't noticed." It wasn't necessary to see her face to know she was smirking. Elenei focused on imagining Ser Davos' stories and reminded herself to stay far away from her parents' chambers later that night. When she dared look back a while later, her mother was leaning with her head on Father's shoulder, their hands clasped just beneath the table.

"I can see them off to bed," Niiotha told them with a knowing expresion. Their mother looked at them and seemed to answer a list of questions in her own head before nodding and thanking her friend. She embraced each child with a firm hug, then waited for Father to finish kissing the tops of their heads before retreating for the night.

Berena scowled at the way the two leaned into one another as they left, and that made Elenei laugh.

"One day that will be you with the next Lord of Storm's End," she jeered. Her sister shot her a look so sharp it ought to have been made of steel.

They listened to another one of Ser Davos' stories, though this one was less fun than the others because Niiotha kept interrupting him to correct parts. He was attempting to tell about when he had sailed West to return a friend of Mother's to his homeland, and all the hilarious ways their father had responded to the Western continent.

Both of the Davoses grew weary soon after the tale finished. Elenei was feeling too many things to be sleepy, but she brought her siblings with her as she returned to the guest wing.

Her chambers in Feastfires were so nice that she wondered if her parents had taken lesser accommodations so that she might have the best room on her final night in Westeros. All of her past comparisons to Storm's End seemed unfair - this room was far better than anything she had at home. The Baratheon castle was built for enduring storm and sea, not luxury. This was the opposite. The room was as big as Mother and Father's sleeping chamber but far more intricately designed, with a massive window three times her height that took up most of the southern wall. The room was wedged into a corner of the castle, and its east-facing wall opened to a massive marble balcony. Tapestries of scenes Elenei could only presume came from House Prester's history hung on the empty spaces in silky streams of yellow, blue, and black.

The center of the room housed a massive four-post bed so large she could have laid across it horizontally and still had room. Gauzy fabric hung from each side tied still with a thin white cord of silk. Elenei undressed and threw herself into the bed, relishing in how soft the feather mattress felt after nearly a month on the kingsroad with her family.

The moment her head hit the satin pillow, exhaustion set in and swept her up into a land of strange dreams and heavy sleep.

The golden light of dawn woke her through the balcony at sunrise. She attempted to lie in bed, but nerves fluttered too strong for her to stay still. The early morning air was wet with dew as she opened the door to the balcony and stood against the railing to watch life begin on the grounds below.

Her mother, most of her siblings, and Ser Davos waited for her when she made it to the great hall to break her fast; even baby Maris was there, propped up in Mother's lap as she beat the table with tiny hands. Though the hour was late, Davos and her father were both missing.

They had prepared her favorite foods again - soft boiled quail eggs; hunks of sharp, salty cheese; black bread; strips of fried pork belly; and sweet, ripe heaps of melons of all colours.

She filled her plate and savored the scrape of yolk against bread.

"Good morning," Father's deep voice rang out. He sounded tired even though he had gone to sleep earlier than the rest of them. They greeted him and tried to make sense of the bizarre look he gave Mother before he sat and took their youngest sibling from her.

"Elenei," her mother started when she was no longer preoccupied with keeping Maris from putting knives or glass in her mouth. Her tone made Elenei nervous. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out about the weirwood?"

The fork in her hand danced while she thought of how to respond.

"It's staying here. Bran doesn't need to spy on the rest of the world whenever he's bored."

"He doesn't want to spy," she defended. "He just wants to make sure I'm safe. Besides, he's the King, you can't just say 'no.'"

"You can when you're his sister," Father said with a shrug.

"But I need it to practice my lessons," she protested. There was a childish tone to her voice that made her almost ashamed, but the thought of disobeying Uncle Bran mattered more.

"Well, it's staying here. You can practice warging or something else that doesn't require a weirwood." It wasn't fair - what if Uncle Bran stopped training her because she hadn't kept up with her instructions? "If the tree needed to go, he would have spoken to me directly," her mother finished as though she had read her mind and piled some cheese upon her bread.

Ned chattered on about trees then, though he only knew them as hard things with leaves that grew from the ground, and everyone listened intently.

Elenei went back to her room as soon as she had finished her food to be alone on the balcony.

A few hours after breakfast, mother came to walk with her down to the ship. She didn't bother asking her what she had done with her morning. Father, Maris, and Ned all waited for them at the castle gates.

Berena went off to fetch Davos - Elenei was sure her brother had overslept and would be woken in some terrible but hilarious fashion, likely involving water - while the rest of them made their way to the docks.

Elenei had briefly seen the ship earlier that morning, but that had been quick and purposeful. Now it seemed to have grown twice its size. Massive sails had already been unfurled, painted grey with a giant black direwolf upon them.

"Don't leave yet, we're here!" Berena shouted as she ran down the path with Davos. Sure enough, his hair was soaked.

Her sister was troublesome, but she loved just as fiercely as she fought and provoked. Elenei held her tight when she ran into her arms. Her fingers tangled in the unbrushed black hair as she pressed her closer with one hand against her head.

"You have Needle!" Berena said wide-eyed after she stepped away.

"Yes she does." Her mother placed a hand on the girl's already-tousled head and passed her their squirming youngest sibling.

Davos rubbed sleep from his eyes and held back a yawn as he approached her. "I'll be taller than you when you get back." That seemed unlikely.

"Keep telling yourself that," Elenei chuckled before hugging him. Before she let go, a small figure grasped her legs.

"El!" For once she didn't tell him not to call her that. Instead, she scooped upper youngest brother and held him close, smiling against his brown hair.

"Will you be taller than me, too?" She asked. He gave a resounding 'No' and wrapped his arms around her neck. When she put him down, his face was red and his blue eyes full. Without a word, he reached into his pocket and removed a small stone. It was nothing special, just a rough grey and green piece of granite he had likely found on the road while stopped somewhere, but he offered it as though it were gold. Elenei took it from him with a smile and thanked him. "I'll keep it safe."

The rock had no meaning to her, but she found her eyes burning despite it. Ned was a sweet child - she hoped he would be the same when she returned.

Elenei had looked forward to this trip for most of her life - the chance to meet an entire new continent of people, to see strange creatures and taste fresh fruits and fish she had never imagined. Yet now a reluctance was growing inside of her. Leaving her family, even just for a year, seemed impossible.

"What have I always told you?" Her knight mother asked as she wiped a tear from her daughter's cheek.

"Fear cuts deeper than swords."

"That's right." She tapped Needle as it hung from Elenei's left hip. "And your sword will cut plenty deep. Don't be afraid to use it."

"A lovely saying, but as both a smith and your father, I feel obliged to make sure you know swords do, in fact, cut very deep." He approached and ignored his wife's glare at his disapproval of her favourite saying. Father bent down to meet his eldest daughter's eyes.

"Be good and be safe," he said softly, his calloused hand rough as it rested against the side of her face. Tears welled in his crystal blue eyes, the same exact eyes little Ned, Berena, and Maris had inherited. She nodded and didn't mind as much when he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "And maybe don't stab anyone unless you need to."

Elenei blinked back her own tears and hugged her father tightly, then moved to wrap her arms around her mother. She embraced her back and kept her held against her for a few deep breaths. When she patted her gently to let her know she'd pull away, her face was streaked and wet.

"Remember we'll be here for as long as you can send ravens - when we left we had about two weeks before they stopped reaching us. As long as you get letters from us, we'll expect them back." Her father tried to use his strict voice, but it sounded absolutely absurd. Elenei couldn't contain her smirk. "Make sure she writes and don't get her into trouble," he said to Niiotha.

The woman rolled her eyes and hugged Mother.

"I know we didn't go on the trial sail, but I think you ought to stop at Baqabatar on your way back. I'd like her to meet Yuisaraq's family." _Yuisaraq_. Elenei knew the name - a friend of her mother's who had died to get Uncle Bran back on the throne.

Niiotha nodded and turned to face her. "Ready?" She asked. She wasn't sure that she was, but this was certainly not the time to admit that. Instead, her response was a single nod and a smiled that she knew stopped short of her eyes.

Her family stood on the docks, most of them teary eyed except for Berena and Davos; Ned sobbed as though it were Mother leaving again and not just his eldest sister.

Elenei gave them one last glance and held her breath when her mother looked to where a small circular window poured light into her cabin below deck - she did not see the red leaves hidden just beyond its pane.

"Don't drown!" Berena shouted, her hands clenched into fists by her side.

Elenei laughed. It was a cathartic laugh, more tears than actual humour, but it helped. Father stood unsteadily with his hand on his wife's shoulder as though it might tether him to the ground and stop him from running up onto the ship to stop her.

With her grey eyes squeezed tightly enough to hold back tears, she turned to walk onto the ship, only peeking through the lids so that she might see the tread of the ramp. Niiotha squeezed her arm lightly when it was time to swing a leg over the high step onto the deck.

It would only be a year. Uncle Bran had given her plenty to practice in her time away, and he had made some cryptic hints about the people she would meet while across the sea - there would be plenty to look forward to. Before her lay a seemingly endless ocean. Beyond it, a land where women and men were true equals, water ran so pure you could drink it from trickling streams, and no one held expectations when they heard the name Stark or Baratheon. She was ready.

Still, Elenei did not dare look back until they had pushed off. When she did, her family grew smaller in the distance; Berena with both arms wrapped around a tiny squirming dot she knew was Maris, Davos digging his right foot into the ground with his arms pressed awkwardly by his side, little Ned tilting up onto his toes to get a better view, Ser Davos waving kindly, and Mother and Father leaned against one another, father doubtless crying. She turned and looked to where a yellow sun glinted onto cobalt sea - it was time to learn the secrets of the West.


End file.
